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THE PENETRATION OF ARABIA 



THE STORY OF EXPLORATION 

The Penetration 
OF Arabia 

A RECORD OF 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF WESTERN 

KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING THE 

ARABIAN PENINSULA 

BY 
DAVID GEORGE HOGARTH, M.A., F.R.G.S., F.S.A. 

FELLOW OF MAGDALEN, OXFORD 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS i 

AND MAPS ] 

i 

I 

I 
AND MAPS BY J. G. BARTHOLOMEW i 



NEW YORK 
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



UBRahJ.V «* CONGRESS 
Two Copies ReoeivacI 

MAR 22 1904 

^Clopyrlgnt Entry 

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Copyright, igo4. 
By Frederick A. Stokes Company 

Published in April, 1904 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



PREFATORY NOTE 

THE purpose of this volume is to describe the 
exploration of inland Arabia. Little, therefore, 
will be found in it concerning coast-surveys, or trav- 
ellers who visited ports only. The author feels it 
incumbent on him to state that he is not among those 
who have penetrated the Arabian Peninsula, and that 
his personal acquaintance with its inhabitants and their 
language is small. His sole qualification for writing 
the story of Arabian exploration rests on a study of 
the literature of Arabian travel, which the fascination 
of the subject has led him to pursue for some years. 
His book must be regarded therefore as a mere essay 
in the polarization, appreciation, and introduction to 
the public of other men's first-hand work. 

Unlike the first volume in this Series, the second 
cannot pretend to relate the achievement of a Quest. 
Arabia is still in great part withdrawn from western 
eyes. But the present moment, which occurs during 
a marked pause in its exploration, is not an unfit- 
ting one for taking stock of knowledge. When the 
actual political changes and convulsions, which are 
due in large measure to the constant advance of Otto- 
man power in the peninsula, have ceased to disturb 



vi PREFATORY NOTE 

its society, Europeans will doubtless complete the pene- 
tration of Arabia. Many obligations are acknowl- 
edged either in the following pages or under the titles 
of the illustrations. The Index is due to the author's 
wife. 

D. G. HOGARTH. 
London, 1904. 



NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY 

THE orthography of geographical place-names in this 
volume (with the exception of a few too familiar to 
be changed ) follows the system adopted by the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society. It is only necessary to remind readers 
that there are no mute letters: that ; has its English 
value; and that an is to be sounded ozv, as in German. 

Other Arabic names and words are transliterated for 
the most part on a scientific system, for which I have to 
thank my friend, the learned Arabist, Mr. Guy Lestrange. 
A few, which have passed into the English language under 
unscientific forms, retain their familiar spelling in special 
cases, e. g. the names of the Meccan Prophet, his son-in- 
law, and the founder of the present Egyptian dynasty. 
Thus, among other inconsistencies, Mahomet, Mehemet, 
and Muhammad; AH and 'Alt; IVahabi and Wahhab, 
will be found in the text. I use Bedawin, Bedawins, 
rather than the French form Bedouin. Neither one nor 
the other, of course, is Arabic. 

When quoting other writers, I always use their or- 
thography, however inconsistent with that of my own 

text. 

D. G. H. 



CONTENTS 



PART I. THE PIONEERS 

Chapter Page 

I. Before Exploration i 

II. NiEBUHR IN Yemen 39 

III. Pilgrims in Hijaz 64 

IV. The Egyptians in Nejd 98 

V. The Egyptians in the Southwest .... 120 

.VI. The Unknown South 133 

VII. The Unknown North 155 

PART II. THE SUCCESSORS 

VIII. Western Borderlands 176 

IX. Southern Borderlands 206 

X. Eastern Borderlands 226 

XI. The Central North 242 

XII. The Centre 265 

XIII. The Central South 296 

XIV. Unknown Arabia 323 

XV. Summary 338 

Index » c . . . . 349 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Medina Frontispiece 

Ptolemy's Map according to Sprenger . . . To face page \1 

Berthelot's Map of Arabia (1635) .... " iz 

D'Anville's Map of Arabia (1755) .... " 36 

La Roque's Map of Yemen (1716) . . . . " 45 

Carsten Niebuhr " 51- 

Baurenfeind's Sketch of the Coflfee Hills, 

Yemen (1763) " 53 

Niebuhr's Plan of Sana (1763) " 55 

Niebuhr's Map of Yemen (1763) .... " 60 
Mecca. Pilgrims at Prayer in the Great 

Mosque-Precinct " 64- 

Mecca Pilgrims " 68 

Mecca Pilgrims at the Tomb of Sittana 

Metmunah " 76 

Burton's Plan of Medina (1854) " 79 

The Ka'bah, Mecca . " 81 

Ulrich Jaspar Seetzen " ^2> 

Johann Ludwig Burckhardt " 88 

Burckhardt's Plan of Mecca (i 814) . ... " 90 

Mecca Pilgrims in Camp outside the City . . " 92 

The Tomb-Mosque of the Prophet at Medina " 94 



xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Wahabi Emir 'Abd- Allah Ibn Sa'ud . To face page 103 

Medina " iii 

Sadlier's Route " 117 

Jomard's Map of Asir and S. Hijaz (1839) . " 124 

Struys' Sketch of Maskat (about 1655) ... " 134 

Wellsted's Map of Oman (1838) " 143 

The First Published Himyaritic Inscriptions . " 145 

Von Maltzan's Map of Von Wrede's Routes . " -51 

George Augustus Wallin " 161 

Wallin's Routes " 169 

Ritter's Map of Arabia (1852) " 171 

Richard Burton " 178 

J. Snouck Hurgronje " 190 

Mecca " 192 

Houses in Sana " 198 

Manzoni's Plan of Sana (1879) " 200 

Joseph Hal^vy " 202 

Imam Sharif's Survey of Hadramaut (1893) . " 221 

Maskat <« 229 

Palgrave's Plan of Hofuf (1862) " 237 

William Gifford Palgrave " 245 

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt « 254 

Lady Anne Blunt " 256 

Charles Huber . « 258 

Julius Euting " 260 

Charles Montague Doughty " 271 

Sketch by Doughty of a Tomb Facade at El Hejr « 273 

The Teima Stone , , , , " 382 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii 

Doughty 's Sketch of Kheibar (1877) . . To face fiage 2^ 

Palgrave's Plan of Hail (1862) " 287 

Palgrave's Map of Arabia (1862) « 308 

Palgrave's Plan of Riad (1862) « 313 

Jidda « 345 



I ■ f 



ARABIA 

PART I. THE PIONEERS 



CHAPTER I 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 



ARABIA, a land larger than peninsular India, lies 
in the heart of the Old World, and beside its 
main road of commerce, but we know much of it hardly 
better than the Antarctic continent. It is so lean a 
territory that international trade has little or no con- 
cern with it, and so difficult that the long circuit by 
sea is preferred to any cross route by land. Never- 
theless, few regions of the world have played a greater 
part in the history of mankind. 

This Arabian peninsula, which, if restricted to its 
smallest dimensions by the thirtieth parallel of lati- 
tude, contains near a million and a quarter square 
miles, is physically one with the continental region 
from which it depends; for, rising abruptly from the 
Western Sea, and falling eastward by a long and easy 
decline, it continue? the land shelf of Syria. The slope 
of the Xr^l^i^'i" p'^rtion of the shelf is rather to north 



2 ARABIA 

of east, and the elevation of the whole tends to rise 
towards the south. The surface is generally of sand- 
stone formation, thinly imposed on limestones, but 
disordered in many places by intrusive plutonic rocks, 
or masked by eruptive matter ; and this peculiar super- 
ficial structure combines with certain accidents of its 
position to produce the general barrenness for which 
the peninsula is notorious. 

Arabia is placed between seas east and west ; but 
these are so narrow as hardly to break climatic con- 
tinuity with the Asian and African continental masses, 
both of which are exceptionally rainless in these lati- 
tudes. While even Syria is parched by the inter- 
ception of much of the ^lediterranean vapour and 
its precipitation on high western steeps, Arabia is 
in worse case. The little the western sea has to 
give is dissipated before reaching the long eastward 
slopes of the peninsula. The southern ocean might, 
and does, bring rains ; but the monsoon strikes Arabia 
just where the land face is highest and most abrupt; 
and, accordingly, while twice in the year it does much 
for the short seaward slopes of Yemen and Asir 
(though not with absolute regularity, owing to the 
proximity of the high African lands), very little 
moisture survives for the inland slopes, and the last 
sprinklings are exhausted in the southern half of 
the peninsula. Oman obtains enough rain; but the 
mass of Central Arabia has to depend on such un- 
certain vapours as may come off the narrow Persian 
Gulf, or ride on northern and easterly air currents. 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 3 

which, after crossing other lands, themselves thirsty 
enough, have to encounter the dilating influence of 
superheated sands. Arabia, therefore, cannot escape 
being among the most rainless countries on earth, and, 
further, through its low latitude, one of the hottest. 
The isothermal line of highest August temperature 
passes right across it. These, however, are not all 
its physical disadvantages. Most of the little moisture 
that the higher shelf does obtain is absorbed into its 
limestones and lost, to reappear at the foot of the 
eastward slope, in the hot Hasa and Katif sources, 
or actually under the sea surface at Bahrein. Nor 
is the volume of these coastward springs sufficient 
to maintain a single stream perennial as far as the 
sea. Despite Ptolemy, Arabia has not, and probably 
never had, a true river in all its immense area. 

It follows that settled life is sporadic over almost 
all the peninsula, maintained in such isolated spots 
as collect a little ground water from wide surround- 
ing areas. In other words, Arabia has no continu- 
ously cultivated regions, except in the most favoured 
southern coastal tracts, but only oases of small extent, 
divided one from another by deserts of greater area, 
which, thanks to the nature of the surface formation, 
are often of peculiarly prohibitive character. Trav- 
ellers not only must encounter there immense stretches 
of dusty limestone steppe, such as Arabs call hamid 
(Hamad), where water is to be obtained only from 
very deep wells, to make or maintain which there is 
hardly any population; but, in order to reach the 



4 ARABIA 

interior at almost all points, they must face two 
varieties of desert even more formidable. 

The first variety is represented by those immense 
lava tracts, named harrah, most painful for man and 
beast, owing to their broken and rugged sterility and 
their radiant heat, which, with but few intervals, form 
a wide barrier on the west from Midian to Mecca; 
the second variety by the high dune regions of wasted 
sandstone, wind-borne from the west {nafud, dahnd, 
or ahkdf), which form an inner ring round the heart 
of Arabia. On both the north and the south these 
sand belts are continuous and of great breadth. The 
northern Nafud can be crossed only with great labour 
and circumspection, as we shall see hereafter, and has 
been crossed, in fact, by not more than half a score 
of Europeans. The southern sand desert has yet to 
be tried by a stranger, and we have no absolute as- 
surance that even a native has ever crossed the heart 
of it. It is a name of terror throughout Arabia. 
These two fearful tracts are joined on the east by a 
desert belt narrowest on the northeast, where, owing 
to the intrusion of granites and basalts in Jabal Sham- 
mar, the supply of sand fails for a brief space, and the 
caravans may pass to Koweit and Basra over ill- 
watered but comparatively firm ground. Similarly, 
on the western side of the peninsula where the harrahs 
He, erupted lavas have protected so much of the super- 
ficial sandstone from denuding influences that the 
material for dunes is but scanty, and hereabout the 
Persian pilgrims may march down to Medina or 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 5 

Mecca, meeting with no worse country than the thirsty 
limestone steppe. 

These characteristics of the land, reacting on the 
inhabitants, render them in great part of unsettled 
predatory habit, intensely individualist, jealous of the 
secrets of water and pasture which barely make life 
possible, and proud of an exclusive liberty, which has 
never been long infringed. Moreover influences, racial, 
climatic, topographical, which we cannot hope now 
to analyse, have caused them, as far back as we may 
know anything of their history, to express themselves 
in fanatical deistic creeds, and to enforce these by the 
sword. When the Beni Israel were moving from well 
to well of northern Arabia in the strength of Yahveh, 
North Arabia can have been no better place for a 
stranger, Eg}-ptian or other, than it was during the 
century following the rival preachings of Mahomet 
and Musaylamah, or the epoch of Carmathian conquest, 
or that more recent era, which saw Sheikh Makrami 
propagate his creed from Nejran to Hasa, and the 
Wahabite emirs sweep the peninsula in the name of 
Allah indivisible. 

Therefore it is not wonderful that the roll of Euro- 
pean explorers in Arabia is short, that its earliest 
names are recent, and that it contains very few repre- 
sentatives of certain categories of pioneers which have 
opened out most dark places of earth. Such categories 
are the soldier adventurer, the Christian missionary, 
and the trader. In the first category, below the remote 
name of ^lius Callus, we may only place doubtfully 



6 ARABIA 

one or two renegade janissaries and mamelukes, and 
the French and Italian officers attached to Egyptian 
armies between 1812 and 1840, all of whom, taken 
together, have not greatly informed us. In the second 
category, since the Jesuit, Gifford Palgrave, seenis to 
have travelled neither ostensibly nor covertly for a 
genuine religious purpose, there is no famous name 
to record. Nor do I know of a single European mer- 
chant, pure and simple, who has contributed to our 
science in this land ; for those travellers, for example, 
who have visited Nejd with an eye to the Arab 
horse, were either, like Wallin, Palgrave, and Guar- 
mani, political emissaries of foreign princes and bearers 
of wide commissions, or, like the Blunts and Nolde, 
not traders at all, but enthusiastic amateurs of the 
breed. Almost all Arabian explorers may be said to 
have been impelled to the peninsula by their own cu- 
riosity or that of foreign princes and associations, 
whether as pilgrims to its holy places, or archaeologists, 
confessed and disguised, or passing observers of its 
actual societies. 

But short as the roll is, a reader might well wonder 
that it shows so many names as in fact it does, and 
among them an unusual tale of men of varied and 
great gifts, — men like Niebuhr, Seetzen, Burckhardt, 
Wallin, Burton, Palgrave, Halevy, Doughty, Blunt, 
Huber, Euting, Hurgronje, Glaser, — men of too 
serious mind to have been tempted by mere love of 
adventure or the forbidden thing. Why did such as 
these hazard themselves in a land so naked that none 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 7 

covets it ; rendered so monotonous by the disastrous ac- 
tion of natural influences that it cannot be supposed to 
hide any sensational secret ; inhabited thinly by so uni- 
form and poor a population? In comparison of other 
lands, how should Arabia have mattered to them ? 

Yet it has mattered not only to them, but to all 
men even beyond other lands. Had the Arabs propa- 
gated Islam only, — had they only known that single 
period of marvellous expansion wherein they assim- 
ilated to their creed, speech, and even physical type, 
more aliens than any stock before or since, not 
excepting the Hellenic, the Roman, the Anglo-Saxon, 
or the Russian, — even so the Arabs would still 
make a paramount claim on western interest. But 
when we remember that, not only as the head and 
fount of pure Semitism they originated Judaism, and 
largely determined both its character and that of 
Christianity, but also that the expansion of the Arabian 
conception of the relation of man to God and man 
to man (the Arabian social system, in a word) 
is still proceeding faster and farther than any other 
propagandism, can we wonder that men of serious 
mind and imaginative temperament have braved much 
to study this folk in its home? 

It would lead one too far into speculation to try 
here to account for the social force of Arabia. I do 
but suggest that, if race be the main determinant, the 
geographical conditions of the land must claim some 
responsibility. The blood and the social life of this 
race, which all travellers, who have seen it at its best. 



8 ARABIA 

assert to be physically the finest of the Caucasian type, 
owes to the natural barriers set about the " Island of 
the Arabs " an immunity from alien contamination 
which those of no other race above the savage state 
have enjoyed; and, further, the Arab owes in part at 
least to singular climatic conditions his strong and 
simple intelligence which has formulated again and 
again a conception of God simple and strong enough 
to convince alien myriads of mankind. 

This singular land probably has never been wholly 
unknown to the West since civilisation has been suffi- 
ciently developed there, to have become curious of its 
environment. Arabia has been discovered by Europe, 
forgotten again in great part, and discovered once 
more. The Mediterranean Semites had certainly at 
an early period some knowledge of Arabia. Phoeni- 
cians seem to have told Herodotus that their race came 
originally from the " Ruddy Sea," by which term he 
understood what we know as the Persian Gulf. 
He tells us that these same Phoenicians were carriers 
of South Arabian products in the Red Sea, but herein 
may be speaking unwittingly of the Jews who, having 
a port on the Gulf of Akaba, early in the history of 
their kingdom, were in communication with the south- 
ern part of the peninsula. As for the Egyptians, 
how much they knew of the eastern shore of the Red 
Sea the learned in hieroglyphic place-names dispute; 
but it is hard to believe that their spice-land of " Punt " 
was not, in part at least, Arabian. 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 9 

Phcenician, Hebrew, and Egyptian knowledge, how- 
ever, enters into our inquiry only in so far as it 
affected the West; that is to say, only in so far as 
it was communicated to Greek geographers, and by 
them made public in Europe. For us the History of 
Herodotus, written in the latter part of the fifth cen- 
tury before Christ, must be the starting-point. It 
has been held that though this author knew the whole 
length of one coast of Arabia, which he calls the 
most southerly of all lands, and described products 
which were procured from the south of it only, his 
" Arabia " lay north of the true peninsula altogether. 
This is an error due to a needless interpretation of 
one passage, wherein, ignoring the Persian Gulf, the 
author made Arabia continuous with Persia. But at 
that moment he was expressing a broad view of the 
continental land masses, not expecting to be charged 
with ignorance of a gulf up which he himself had 
stated that Scylax sailed, or of the southward exten- 
sion of Arabia. In the same connection, as his phrase 
proves, he had almost disregarded the " Arabian 
Gulf " also, well as he knew both its existence and 
extent. For he did not hold these narrow and all but 
land-locked inlets necessarily to affect the continental 
arrangement. Probably Herodotus knew the true 
shape and penetration of the Eastern Sea as imper- 
fectly as the true form and size of Arabia ; but surely 
when he spoke of the Spice-land he meant some part 
of the peninsula which we still call Arabia, and not 
the southern Hamad. 



lo ARABIA 

In all likelihood it was not till a century later that 
any Greek saw Arabia. The first land sighted was the 
towering crag of Ras Musandam, which loomed up 
before Nearchus and his crews as they crept into the 
mouth of the Persian Gulf late in the year 325. We 
hear that Alexander's admiral was on the point of 
standing across and ignoring the bay which opened on 
his right hand; and though he repented, and kept to 
his own shore, his report of a coast trending south- 
ward beyond the Gulf served to promise Alexander 
a new world to conquer, or a new way of return to 
the Old World. In the last year of his life the Em- 
peror despatched exploring vessels down the Gulf, 
probably to make sure there was this continuous main- 
land on its southwest hand. His commanders seem to 
have reached Bahrein or some of the islands off the 
Pirate Coast, and to have visited Gerra, already a pros- 
perous trading-station ; and on their report Alexander 
conceived the impracticable plan of a coastal march 
round the peninsula to Egypt in order to subdue this 
Arabian people which had sent him no submission; 
but he did not live to experience the terrible suffering 
and ultimate failure that would have ensued. 

Since, however, for nearly ten years ere this, Egypt 
had been in European hands, the Greek had begun to 
learn through Arabian trade the secrets of Arabia. 
How much the Red Sea skippers, some of them Greeks, 
and the Nabathsean and Sabsean caravaners had to tell 
in Alexandria, we may guess from the knowledge 
shown by that great scientific geographer, Eratos- 



BEFORE EXPLORATION ii 

thenes, within a century of the Macedonian Conquest. 
To his knowledge but imperfect justice can now be 
done, for his original work is lost, and we have but a 
few extracts and summaries of its chapters by Strabo ; 
but among these are passages relating particularly to 
Arabia. The Alexandrian librarian had learned facts 
about the general character of the southern Hamad 
near Petra (though he exaggerated its breadth in 
common with all west to east measurements) ; and 
he knew the length of the vast peninsula within a 
hundred miles. He was aware of an immense dreary 
tract, south of the Hamad, largely sandy, with thorny 
desert vegetation, and a few wells and palm oases, 
inhabited by tenting camel-breeders, — a tract which 
at last merged into a region of greater plenty. Here 
dwelt a large fauna, but not the horse. And he knew 
something, too, of the nations, of the Sabaean and 
Min?ean tribes, and their civilisation in the Yemen, of 
the incense-land of Hadramaut, and of the caravan 
routes which led thence to Gerra on the Persian Gulf, 
and through the Tehama to the head of the Gulf of 
Akaba. 

The Red Sea, at any rate, was soon to become 
almost as well known to the Egyptian Greeks as the 
Euxine to the Byzantines. Agatharchides and Arte- 
midorus seem, by the report of later writers, to have 
had detailed knowledge of both its shores. But the 
Egyptian skippers for many years hesitated to visit any 
part of the Arabian coast beyond Bab el-Mandeb ; and 
the Greek traders who lived on the Persian Gulf, espe- 



12 ARABIA 

cially at Gerra, habitually despatched their wares to 
Petra overland. The ocean trade with Somaliland and 
further Africa, with India and with Ceylon, remained 
long in the hands of the Yemen and Hadramaut Arabs ; 
and southwest Arabia was still, at the Christian era, 
the paramount emporium of those precious stones and 
metals, gums and spices, which represented to the 
ancient world the last word of fastidious luxury. The 
fame of Araby the Blest spread far and wide, till it 
awoke the cupidity of Rome. The Arabs of that day, 
like other Semites since, were regarded as the blood- 
suckers of the west, and public opinion supported 
Augustus in his resolve to investigate their rich land, 
and, if need were, to lay hands on their trade and their 
hoards of gold. 

Under the command of ^lius Gallus, Eparch of 
Egypt, who perhaps himself advised the venture, the 
Emperor sent the first, and indeed the last, considerable 
military force that a European power has ever de- 
spatched to the conquest of inland Arabia. Once more 
we have to thank Strabo, a friend of the leader, for an 
account of this expedition. After wasting time and 
money on building a war fleet, Gallus set sail from 
Suez, and was directed by the Nabathsean emir, with 
whom his plan had been concerted, towards a port, 
Levke, on the eastern coast of the Red Sea. Long 
delay and much sickness ensued in the pestilential 
Tehama air, as at the outset of the next Egyptian 
expedition, that of Tussun Pasha in 1811 ; and there- 
after a toilsome march was made through ill-watered 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 13 

lands to the fertile region of Negrana. This was 
easily captured. After six days more a battle took 
place on a river, and the ill-armed Arabs, utterly 
defeated, were forced to open passage to certain well 
built cities, of which Mariaba was chief. From an- 
other of these, Caripeta, it was reported but two days' 
journey to the Incense Land itself. But the Roman 
had been on the march six months, suffered much, 
found little of the wealth he came to seek, and lost 
his illusions about Araby the Blest. He turned again 
to Negrana, marched thence in sixty days to Hegra, 
within the friendly Nabathsean border, ferried his 
troops in eleven days to Myos Hormos, on the Egyp- 
tian shore, and left Arabia for ever, cursing all who 
had induced him to invade, and all who had guided 
him in that land. Strabo repeats uncritically his 
friend's plaint of Nabathaean treachery ; but the truth 
seems to be that the Roman, having set out with a 
wholly false idea of the character of the land, saw it 
as it really was and is, and had to make the best of a 
failure; and if he, or the authorities at Rome, still 
continued to believe that there was an Eldorado in 
Arabia, from which false guides had seduced him, 
neither he nor any other Roman ever tried again to 
find it. 

The question by which way and exactly whither 
^lius Gallus went, has been much discussed. In a 
land of changeless names the synonymity of his A^^^- 
grana with the fertile oasis of Nejran, and of his 
Mariaba with Marib, the actual site of the Sabsean 



14 ARABIA 

Mariaba ; * and the correspondence of that reported 
two days' march to the Incense Land with the distance 
which in fact separates the vale of Marib from the 
uppermost valleys of Hadramaut, are almost conclu- 
sive that the Roman's goal was Yemen; and this is 
accepted as the case by the only European traveller 
who has been in both Marib and Nejran, the learned 
Joseph Halevy, and by his follower, Glaser. Hegra, 
then, must not be placed anywhere near the site usually 
found for Levke, i. e., on the twenty-fifth parallel, and 
in face of Myos Hormos; for no army could have 
reached it in so little as sixty days from Nejran, march- 
ing nearly a thousand miles in such a land as Arabia; 
but it must be understood to have been at Haura, the 
port of inland Hejr, whence eleven days are not too 
little or too much to allow for the voyage to Myos 
Hormos. 

The report of this campaign must have given much 
precision to the vague contemporary views about west- 
ern Arabia, for it supplied a sound criterion of distance. 
Now, for the first time, caravan hours could be com- 
pared with hours of Roman military marching. At the 
same time the eastern side of the peninsula had become 
better known, thanks to a maritime expedition, ascribed 
by Pliny to " Epiphanes," probably King Antiochus IV 
of Syria. Already the Graeco-Egyptian navigators 
were venturing out of the Red Sea and coasting 
towards India, along the south shore of the peninsula ; 
^nd presently Hippalus was to make the straight run 

J Pliny expressly identifies this with Gallus' Mariaba. 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 15 

from Socotra to the Indus. The unknown geographer, 
who wrote the " Periplus of the Red Sea " late in the 
first century of our era, knew all that it was useful to 
know of the west Arabian coast. News of the caravan 
routes and stations between Petra, Gerra, and the 
Sabaean land and between Gerra and Oman and Ha- 
dramaut, accumulated apace during this century. Even 
in Pliny we find lists of inland tribes, and a few names 
of Central Arabian towns and villages, together with 
a juster view both of the nomad and the settled Arabs ; 
but the Roman geographer wrote so shortly before 
the final ancient authority, and drew so much on the 
same sources, that we may pass on to the work of 
Claudius Ptolemy, whose projection of the known 
world was to determine the geographical ideas of both 
Europeans and Asiatics for many centuries to come. 

Ptolemy of Alexandria, mathematician and astron- 
omer, flourishing about a century after Pliny, while 
the Roman Empire was stretched to its utmost terms 
under the Antonine dynasty, undertook to make an 
atlas of the habitable world. He was not a descrip- 
tive geographer, and his book was intended to be no 
more than a commentary on his maps. These we have 
neither from his hand, nor from any hand nearly con- 
temporary; but his commentary has survived, and 
from it they have been reconstructed. Following the 
lead of Hipparchus and Eratosthenes, but improving on 
their methods, Ptolemy divided the world by parallels 
of latitude, reckoned from the Equator, and parallels 
of longitude, reckoned from a meridian which he drew 



i6 ARABIA 

through the extreme point of land known to him in the 
western ocean, namely, the island of Ferrol. Follow- 
ing also a more recent geographer, Marinus of Tyre, 
whose work is now lost, he aimed further at giving to 
all important points about which he had information, 
some definite relation to these parallels. In short, 
using what evidence was available in his time, whether 
statements and calculations of earlier geographers, 
or logs of ships' captains, or route records of armies, 
merchants, explorers, and caravaners, or estimates 
based on observations of the duration of sunshine, and 
the relative positions of stars in certain cardinal locali- 
ties, he placed his stock of geographical names on his 
charts, and noted afterwards in tabular form the 
mathematical equivalents of their assigned positions. 
He did neither more nor less than do cartographers 
to-day, who name definite points in unsurveyed terri- 
tories, give conventional contours to land-relief, and 
delineate the curves of rivers whose precise courses 
are not known. 

Since, however, Ptolemy added a tabular commen- 
tary, he has often been accused in modern days of a 
fraudulent precision; as though his tables were in- 
tended to imply that an astronomical observation had 
been taken for every position. So, for example. Bun- 
bury has charged him with the imposture of filling 
empty spaces on the sixth or Arabian sheet of his atlas 
with purely fictitious names, assigned with a vain 
parade of science to imaginary situations. This 
charge, a blot on Bunbury's classic work, was due 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 17 

equally to his misapprehension of the real nature of 
Ptolemy's book, as set forth above, and to his igno- 
rance of what had recently been learned about inland 
Arabia by means of the Egyptian expeditions made in 
the first part of the nineteenth century. No one fa- 
miliar with the information derived by Mengin and 
Jomard from the Europeans who accompanied those 
expeditions, from the itinerary of Sadlier, and from 
trustworthy native report, could have written : — 

" No fixed settlements ever existed in a large part of 
the territories to which they (i. e. Ptolemy's Arabian 
inland place-names) are assigned. If this enumeration 
of names is really based upon any definite foundation 
at all, the localities so designated could have been merely 
wells which formed halting places for the Bedouins, or 
fertile spots in the Wadies, where they pitched their 
tents and pastured their flocks." ^ 

Very far from baseless was Ptolemy's enumeration 
of one hundred and fourteen cities or villages in 
Arabia Felix, as Sprenger was to demonstrate con- 
clusively in 1875 by his masterly treatise on the 
" Ancient Geography of Arabia." To this scholar 
belongs the merit of restoring, in our century of wider 
knowledge, the credit that Ptolemy enjoyed in the 
Middle Ages. For not only did he show the Alexan- 
drian to have been indeed aware of the peninsular 
character of Arabia, and the rough outline of its coasts, 
including those of the southeastern projection, of 
which Pliny had been ignorant; but that he had ob- 

1 //isf. of Anc. Geogr., ii. p. 6lO. 

2 



i8 ARABIA 

tained from his predecessors or the caravaners authen- 
tic lists of stations, many of which he placed with such 
approximate accuracy on his chart that they can be 
identified with existing oasis settlements. In several 
cases the persistence of name makes assurance doubly 
sure. For example, Dumaetha, placed by Ptolemy 
just outside the northern boundary of Arabia Felix, 
must be the mediaeval Arabian Daumet, which is to- 
day the chief village of the great oasis of Jauf. Hejr, 
famous in the " times of ignorance " as the seat of 
a kingdom, and now Medayin Salih, is Ptolemy's 
Egra. His Tlmim is Teima, now known from its 
inscriptions to have had temples and some sort of civ- 
ilisation as far back as 500 b. c. It is the Tema 
of Job. In Lathrippa, placed inland from lamhia 
(Yambo), we recognise the lathrippa of Stephen of 
Byzantium, the Yathrib of the early Arab traditions, 
now honoured as El Medina, the City of Cities. 
Where so many certain identifications are possible, 
what reasonable critic will deny that Ptolemy's map 
of inland Arabia both was made in good faith, and 
represented approximately the facts of his time? Nor 
need any reasonable critic condemn it for its obvious 
imperfections. If geographers to-day find that trav- 
ellers' route-tracks, laid down with prismatic compass 
and watch, are subject to such errors of excess and 
defect as to be almost valueless for exact cartography, 
how should we expect precision in a map based on 
estimates of camel marches, measured and directed 
by the sun? Wonderful enough if any localities were 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 19 

so fixed with a variation of less than fifty miles from 
their true positions. 

Ptolemy, like his predecessors, started with a gen- 
eral excess in his longitudinal estimate of the conti- 
nental land-mass of Europe and Asia; and we must 
expect, therefore, the east and west measurement of 
the divers sections to be overstated. We find, in 
fact, too much space allowed between the Egyptian 
coast and the Carmanian; and while in the north, 
where the Petra caravaners had roughly ascertained 
the breadth of the land, the excess was met by widen- 
ing the less known eastern sea, in the south, where 
it had been notorious to mariners ever since Near- 
chus' day that the Erythraean Gulf contracted to a 
strait, Ptolemy had to broaden out the less known 
land. This large error, added to such uncertainty in 
the matter of coastal outline as a modem map-maker 
would experience, had he no Admiralty surveys to 
guide him, distorted the shape of the peninsula in 
Ptolemy's map, and led to inevitable error in the 
relative location of the inland stations. A certain 
conventionality in the disposition of these was inevi- 
table. Where localities have to be fixed on hearsay 
by a criterion of measurement, which is rendered un- 
certain not only by the varying capacities and circum- 
stances of different marchers, but by the fact that the 
land relief often does not admit of direct march from 
point to point, there is much room for subjective ad- 
justment, and for indulging the instinctive love of 
symmetry and distaste of empty spaces. When we 



20 ARABIA 

reflect that in the very latest maps of Arabia these ten- 
dencies have been but partially overcome, we shall not 
be severe " on Ptolemy for narrowing the northern 
desert (a fault corrected within our own generation), 
and for pushing Nejran too far to the south. 

Moreover, a map, made from such material as was 
at Ptolemy's disposal, and in his epoch, will con- 
tain few physical details. Caravaners know stations 
and their intervals, but little of the mountains which 
they naturally avoid or of the source and ultimate 
direction of the wadys that they cross. Ptolemy's 
notes mention certain mountains in Arabia, but for 
lack of his maps we are in doubt how he represented 
their direction or extent. In common with earlier 
geographers, he conceived the peninsula as bounded 
on the north by a chain, in which we may reasonably 
see the bold granite range of Jabal Aja. The moun- 
tains, of which he speaks on the west of the central 
space, justify us in supposing that he rightly placed 
a series of ranges trending from north-northwest to 
south-southeast behind the Red Sea coastland, from 
Mt. Hippus in Midian to Mt. Climax, which is in 
Yemen. His informants further led him to place a 
mountainous district on the contrary side of the centre, 
more or less exactly where occurs, indeed, the tabular 
mass of Jabal Tueik. He has a range behind Oman, 
where the peaks of Jabal Akhdar shut off the inner 
desert; and a coastal range to east of Aden, where 
the southern buttresses of the coastal plateau do really 
assume their most mountainous elevation and form. 



\ 
BEFORE EXPLORATION 21 j 

In fine, when we have said of Ptolemy that in the [ 
second century a. d. he indicated the existence of all 
the main coastal ranges of the peninsula and of its 
two most marked inland chains, without inserting any 
non-existent hill-systems, we have said more for his | 
Arabian orography than can justly be said for that , 
of any subsequent cartographer for about sixteen ' 
centuries. • 

As for rivers, Ptolemy indicated the sources of five j 
and the mouths of three. Therefore he has been j 
condemned by the critics, who rightly object that I 
Arabia has no true rivers at all. But it were fitter to 
have praised him, on the one hand for not indicating ; 
more in a land of great wadys, which at certain sea- I 
sons run deep and full, and on the other for having 
in all five cases indicated undoubtedly certain wadys 
which do carry more water than others in Arabia. If 
his EcBtius is the Wady Hamd, his caravan authorities 
were right to derive it from the bounteous springs of 
the Kheibar harrah. His Lar, flowing by Nagara, 
represents unquestionably the waters which collect 
from Asir and Nejran into the Wady Dauasir, and 
run northeast to a destination still uncertain. If he 
continued this channel right across to the Persian 
Gulf, he showed even in error some just appreci- 
ation of t^ie general land-fall, and probably a know- 
ledge of he great Wady Hanifa in Ared, and of 
those still \)bscure eastward outflows from the Nej- 
dean plateau, which till lately were combined in all 
our maps into a perennial river Aftan. Indeed, the 



11 ARABIA 

Ptolemaic theory of a continuous superficial drainage 
across Arabia, from the head of Wady Dauasir to 
the Gulf, is not yet abandoned by all geographers. 

In Ptolemy's fountains of Styx, to which he assigned 
no outfall on the coast, we recognise the perennial 
waters of the Sabsean country, where ^Hus Gallus 
encountered a river. Here, too, both Arnaud and 
Halevy have recorded the discovery of running 
streams, which, once gathered into a reservoir behind 
the great dam of Marib, are now dissipated in the 
southeastern sands. Ptolemy's Prion, falling out on 
the south coast, is undoubtedly the Wady Hadramaut, 
whose main stream is reported by both Hirsch and the 
Bents to be perennial in the upper parts of its channel. 
Its lower course is unknown ; but if its waters do not 
reach the sea the great depression of its valley cer- 
tainly does so. The head springs of the Prion are 
rightly placed by Ptolemy near to those of the Lar, 
but too far east and north, owing to the longitudinal 
error indicated above, which has pushed Nejrsn into 
the Great Desert. Lastly, the springs of Onanum, 
which Ptolemy does not represent as surviving to the 
sea, stand for some one of the several fine fountains of 
Oman, which actually rise in Jabal Akhdar, but reach 
the coast only under the wady beds : such, for ex- 
ample, are the intermittent streams of the Wadys 
Semail and Tyin. 

More than enough has been said to prove that 
Ptolemy's map really represented the carivaners' best 
knowledge, whether collected by himsdf, by mari- 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 23 

ners, or by earlier geographers during a period when 
caravans were passing more freely through the des- 
erts and oases of the Arabian peninsula than they 
were to pass again for very many centuries; and 
that, with all the imperfections of his maps admitted, 
he must be allowed to have made an enormous scien- 
tific advance on the knowledge of his predecessors, or 
at least their statement of their knowledge. If Ptol- 
emy's method did not indicate inland stations, moun- 
tains, and wadys absolutely in their right positions, it 
served to show their relative positions; or, at worst, 
what precisely was Ptolemy's own idea of those posi- 
tions. Had these been much more erroneous than in 
fact they were, we should still find it infinitely more 
useful to see them so defined than to have to deal 
with them, on the authority of a descriptive treatise 
in the manner of Pliny, at large within the vast bor- 
ders of Arabia. 

Beyond Ptolemy the Greek and Roman geographers 
of later date, whose references to Arabia have been 
preserved, do not carry us. Had the " Periplus " of 
Marcian met with better fortune, we had perhaps been 
able to fill more detail into the Alexandrian's map. 
But not half a score of names have survived of those 
fifty-four tribes, those hundred and sixty-four towns 
and villages, those fifteen mountain ranges, those four 
chief rivers, and so forth, which the fifth-century 
geographer claimed to place in Arabia Felix. Nor 
did Stephen of Byzantium, who cited many Arabian 
names, rarely with any indication but the vaguest of 



24 ARABIA 

their localities, advance science. This first compiler 
of a geographical dictionary — dreary task in which 
he had many Moslem followers — hardly rendered any 
service to Arabian topography beyond the correction 
of Ptolemy's Lathrippa to a form which places its 
identification with Yathrib-Medina beyond cavil. But 
we gather from Stephen that there was written infor- 
mation about the peninsula in his day which has 
not survived to us, notably the book of Glaucus on 
"Arabian Matters." 

The historians of the later Empire contribute noth- 
ing. In Ptolemy's day the Roman administration had 
been pushed as far into the peninsula of Arabia as it 
was ever to go. When Trajan made a province of the 
Nabathsean realm, he did not include its doubtful and 
distant dependencies south of the Hamad, except on 
the coast of the Red Sea. There for fiscal purposes a 
port was maintained on the twenty-fifth parallel, and 
not abandoned till Justinian's time. For the rest, 
Arabia remained outside the sphere of Roman arms, 
and, except very rarely and indirectly, outside that 
also of Roman diplomacy. The Byzantine govern- 
ment, however, had some direct concern with the 
northern Arab powers. Native poets of the " Igno- 
rance " speak of relations with the Roman in Bostra 
and Damascus; and at one epoch the Empire inter- 
ested itself in the affairs of the southwest, when it 
moved the Abyssinian monarch to interfere on behalf 
of the Christians of Yemen. But Procopius could 
state the fact that an Abyssinian expedition advanced 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 25 

from the mysterious land of the Himyarites even to 
Mecca, and that the peninsula was overrun by Chos- 
roes Nushirvan, without letting in a ray of light on 
the geographical ignorance of the time. He tells us 
nothing of Arabia because he himself knew nothing 
more than that it was the land of gold and incense 
and winged serpents, — nothing more than Ammianus 
and Dionysius the Periegete and Herodotus had known. 
Chroniclers of a civilisation incurious of its environ- 
ment, the later Byzantine writers were never more 
barren than when treating of the outer world. 

In the seventh century the heirs of Roman civili- 
sation in the east as well as the west of the Empire 
were concerned with nothing less than Arabia ; when, 
lo! equally unexpected and unwelcome, Arabia began 
to concern herself with them. The first result of this 
turning of tables was not to increase our knowledge. 
Though startled Europe for the first time learned 
Arabian names and saw Arabian faces, her new 
knowledge was more than counterbalanced by the 
withdrawal of the peninsula from all European ac- 
cess. With the expulsion of most of the Christians 
and Jews from Arabia, the conversion or isolation 
of the residue in the far southwest, and the passing 
of Egypt to Moslem rule, communication with Europe 
was cut, and Arabian commerce wholly fell into 
native hands for the space of a thousand years. More- 
over, for a while at least, great part of the peninsula 
became less accessible even to easterns than it had been 



26 ARABIA 

during the " Ignorance." The focus of Moslem civi- 
lisation, by the action of that law which decrees that 
Semites, like Hellenes, shall conceive ideas, but others 
shall realise them in practical systems, passed almost 
at once from the birthland of Islam. Arabia, left 
free to conceive anew, lost her momentary unity in a 
chaos of tribal warfare, fostered now in Nejd, now in 
Carmathian Hasa, now in Oman, now in Yemen ; and 
her interior lands lapsed to obscurity. If a strong 
caliph opened a route across the peninsula for pil- 
grims, this fell again into utter disuse, were his suc- 
cessor weaker or less pious. The caravans that had 
once passed with assured regularity from the Gulf 
shore to Yemen and to Egypt ceased as completely 
as the skilful Greek navigation of the Arabian seas. 
The old resorts of the negotiafores who had informed 
Pliny, fell to ruin. Gerra became a memory, and 
Petra a name, destined to have no known local habi- 
tation, till Burckhardt should happen on its desolate 
valley after a dozen centuries. 

At the same time, however, Arabia had become such 
an object of the world's attention as she was never be- 
fore; and when her expansion had begotten a new 
civilisation and a new demand for science, it was to 
her that eyes, curious of the knowledge of the earth, 
turned first from piety and practical necessity. The 
capture of the repositories of Greek learning put 
the work of Ptolemy, and perhaps other geographical 
treatises now lost, into Moslem hands. Pilgrims pass- 
ing annually up and down the Meccan ways from Syria, 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 27 

Egypt, and Yemen, and less regularly from the Gulf 
shores and Irak, with great following of merchants, 
spread knowledge of the peninsula over the East. 
Works, written before 1000 a. d., by HamdanI, Ibn 
Haukal, Istakhrl, and Mukaddassi, which deal with 
Arabian topography and geography, have come down 
to us; and in the next half-dozen centuries they were 
to be followed by many others, which, based for the 
most part on Ptolemy's system, filled detail into his 
outlines, and owed greater precision to the testimony 
of pilgrims and travellers. Few of their authors had 
seen much of the peninsula, but most had made the 
obligatory pilgrimage to the holy Arabian cities from 
north or west once, if not more often ; and one, Ibn 
Batutah, who, after his visit to Mecca, in 1328, was 
in Yemen, Dofar, and Oman, may almost be reckoned 
the first explorer of Arabia, the first to test geograph- 
ical traditions with his eyes, or by the examination of 
local native witnesses. 

But since it is the progress of the western, not the 
eastern, knowledge of Arabia which is the subject of 
our inquiry, we can only take account of the Moslem 
works at a later date, — at a date, in fact, long sub- 
sequent to the composition of almost all of them. And 
further, we must bear in mind that they were then be- 
come authorities rather for the ancient than the actual 
geography of the peninsula. Though Idrlsi wrote 
his " Book of Climates," wherein Arabia with the 
rest of the known world was described on a Ptolemaic 
system, in Sicily in the twelfth century, he does not 



28 ARABIA 

appear to have affected western ignorance till far 
into the sixteenth. The learned D'Herbelot, who by 
his " Bibliotheque Orientale " first made the west ac- 
quainted, in 1697, with most of the Moslem authors that 
it was to know in the succeeding age, stated, when he 
wrote his preface, that Arabic studies in Europe were 
then about a century old. It was, in fact, in 1592 that 
the first Arabic geography had been issued from the 
Medicean Press. This was the abridgment of Idrisi, 
which was thereafter translated into Latin by two 
Maronites, and published in 1619 at Paris, under 
the title, " Geographia Nubiensis." Abu-1-Fida was 
printed first in translation; and not till early in the 
eighteenth century could his work be studied as a 
printed whole even in its original tongue. Those 
dependent on translations had still longer to wait. 
Gibbon, when dealing with Arabian geography in his 
famous fiftieth chapter, could only refer at first hand 
to the abridged renderings of Idrisi and Abu-1-Fida, 
already mentioned, and for the rest, had to depend 
on the few extracts from Yakut, Ibn Khaldiin, and 
Hajji Khalfah, given by D'Herbelot. Full translations 
of the earliest known Moslem geographers did not ap- 
pear till near the middle of the nineteenth century. 
Hajji Khalfah's " Jihan Numa " was issued in Latin 
as early as 181 8, but Istakhri and Ibn Batutah remained 
in their original Arabic many years longer. Ibn Khal- 
diin had to wait till less than ten years ago; only a 
small part of the writings of Mukaddassi and Yakut 
has ever been rendered into a western tongne; and 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 29 

the book of HamdanI, the most valuable of the Moslem 
authorities on Arabia, has not yet been translated at 
all. 

Through the labours, however, of a few Arabists 
like D'Herbelot, certain of the Moslem geographers 
had ended by modifying considerably western igno- 
rance of Arabia before western scientific exploration 
of the land was instituted. La Roque, who had 
translated into French as much of Abu-1-Fida's work 
as referred to Syria and Arabia, used it, early in the 
eighteenth century, as a touchstone in editing the nar- 
rative of the journey of De la Grelaudiere and Barbier 
in Yemen in 171 2; and both Abu-1-Fida and IdrisI 
were largely responsible for the detail found in DAn- 
ville's map of the peninsula, issued in the middle of 
the eighteenth century. To confirm or correct their 
accounts was the chief object of Niebuhr's party in 
1763. On their statements Michaelis of Gottingen 
drew largely in proposing questions for investigation, 
and to them Niebuhr frequently alludes, as though 
Abu-1-Fida's book at any rate had been his principal 
guide in the country itself. 

A word, therefore, should be said here as to the 
knowledge possessed by Idrisi and Abu-1-Fida. The 
other Moslem authorities need not be taken into 
serious account till after Niebuhr, since the works 
of several — for example, of HamdanI, Istakhrl, and 
Mukaddassi — were certainly unknown in his day ; 
while with others, the " Jihan Numa," for instance, 
long ago printed in Turkish, he showed no acquaint- 



30 ARABIA 

ance, and of the rest, those existing only in manu- 
script, he evidently knew but a few extracts. 

Taken one with the other, Idrisi and Abu-1-Fida 
may be said to have given topographical, rather than 
geographical, information on all the west and south- 
west of Arabia, which not only was far in advance of 
what might have been learned from Ptolemy, but is on 
the whole, so far as it goes, in accordance with our 
present knowledge. But for the other coastal districts, 
even for the important province of Oman, their con- 
tribution hardly amounted to more than the bringing 
of Ptolemy's nomenclature up to their own time; while 
for the greater part of the interior of the peninsula, 
equal to fully three-quarters of the whole of Arabia, 
their data were of the scantiest. Not only had they 
themselves never crossed the peninsula by any of the 
tracks whose stations and wells they enumerated, but 
we may reasonably doubt if they had ever examined 
at first hand any witnesses who had done so, — nay, 
any who had been even in Hadramaut, much less in 
the great desert country of the south or in the Sabaean 
valleys at the back of Yemen; who had visited any 
part of Nejd, or of the Persian Gulf lands, north of 
Oman, or the northern Nafud country. Even of 
places lying off the great pilgrim routes, but so near 
as Teima and Kheibar, Idrisi and Abu-1-Fida venture 
on none but the baldest description. When they come 
to speak of Central Arabia they do little more than 
slightly amplify the vague hearsay notes of Istakhri. 
Idrisi despatches the Hadramaut in one sentence and 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 31 

the southern desert in another, and can only say of 
Nejd that there lies the palm oasis of Yemama, 
watered by the Wady Aftan, with a capital Hadrama, 
and three other towns; and thence it is one day to 
" Ardh," where are villages, and such and such a 
number of marches to Basra, Bahrein, Oman, and 
Mecca. There is no mention of half-a-dozen other 
important oases which we know to exist in Nejd, and 
to have been inhabited from very early times. 

Abu-1-Fida seems to have felt the need of more inde- 
pendent authority. He repeats from one " Hadytsa, 
son of Issa, who had lived in those lands," a summary 
description of Ared and Jabal Shammar, bringing 
Aflaj and the Wady Yabrin to our knowledge; he 
says something of the great northern oasis of Jauf 
(Daumet al-Jandal), and adds a little, but very little, 
to what his predecessors had to say of Yemama an'd 
Faid and the southern desert. But of the Wady 
Dauasir, of Harik, of Woshm, of Sedeir, of Kasim, 
nothing, and little in detail of the western chain of 
oases from Tebuk and Teima to Nejran and the 
southern Jauf. Half habitable Arabia was left by 
Abu-1-Fida for the Europeans to discover. 

In the event they began to discover it before they 
knew his book. As early as 1487 one Peter de Couil- 
lan, commissioned by King John of Portugal, found 
his way overland to the Red Sea, and skirted its coasts, 
calling thrice at Aden ; ^ while, sixteen years later, the 
Bolognese adventurer, Ludovico di Varthema, accom- 

^ I. e., Pero de Couilha. See Galvano, Discoveries, p. 77. (Hakluyt 
Ser., 1862.) 



32 ARABIA 

panied the Syrian pilgrims to Medina and Mecca as a 
mameluke voluntary, and visited Yemen. These were 
forerunners of a more serious invasion. In 1508 the 
new-found sea-way round the Cape brought Portu- 
guese ships to the Arabian shores, provided with charts 
made by Moslems.^ On his way to Ormuz Afonso 
dAlboquerque descended on the coast of Oman, and 
threw garrisons into half a dozen ports, whence they 
were not all expelled till after 1650; and soon after- 
wards he was seen in the Red Sea also, meditating the 
seizure of Mecca for the glory of God and the Most 
Christian King. But a check before Jidda in 15 14 
determined the Portuguese to abandon all idea of 
establishing themselves on the Arabian coast of the 
Red Sea; and thenceforward they contented them- 
selves with intermittent occupations of Aden or its 
islets (e.g., in 1516 and after 1550), and with ex- 
ploratory voyages to Suez, initiated by Lopez Suares 
in 15 16, in quest of trade and an overland route. We 
have the itinerary of such a voyage compiled in 1541 
by John de Castro, pilot of the Governor of Goa, 
Stephen de Gama ; but, like the rest, it but enumerates 
anchorages and daily runs more baldly and less com- 
pletely than the scantiest ancient " Periplus." ^ 

Though the Portuguese remained in Oman for a 
century and a half, their chroniclers did nothing to 
enlighten European ignorance of the country. No one, 

1 E. g., that of the " Pilot Omar," used by D'Alboquerque. 

' Cf. Suleiman Ghazi's itinerary, given by a Venetian skipper in his 
fleet (1538), and that of L. de Marol, which contains a description of 
Jidda. 




m 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 33 

indeed, tells us as much as the first conqueror, who, 
besides giving in his Commentaries some description, 
though very brief, of the coast towns, reported also 
a little hearsay concerning the interior. There dwell 
the half-naked Badens, said he (herein sharing credit 
with Varthema for first mention of Bedawins), ruled 
by a king, Benjabar, whose dominion embraced all the 
Island of Arabia up to the frontier of the " Xeque " 
of Aden. DAlboquerque had misunderstood a correct 
information. For Beni Jabar is the name of a tribe 
still found divided into two sections, one ranging in 
southern Oman, the other in eastern Yemen. ^ 

We should blame the Portuguese kings, their 
advisers and their representatives, rather than the 
chroniclers. The occupation of Oman was the most 
miserable of Portuguese imperial operations. DAl- 
boquerque's work was never seriously followed up. 
The littoral was retained for the sake of its custom- 
houses and its convenience for convoys on the voyage 
to Ormuz and India; but, with the exception of four 
ports, Sohar, Matra, Maskat, and Kiryat, it was 
left in the hands of client but unruly sheikhs. No 
efTort was ever made either to master or even to 
explore the interior of the land. There the sultans 
of Rastak ruled supreme, gradually forcing the infidels 
to confine themselves to their forts and to pay tribute 
even for those. Part of their wretched history may 
be read from the Christian point of view in the Jesuit 

1 When Stern was in Sana in 1856 this tribe was holding the west- 
ward passes. 

3 



34 ARABIA 

Maffei's " Historise Indicse," and more of it from the 
Moslem side in Arabic works, of which the most 
informing is that translated in the Hakluyt Series, 
under the title " Imams and Seyyids of Oman." But 
the clearest light thrown on a miserable chapter of 
European history in Arabia is owed to certain letters, 
written from Ormuz in the middle of the sixteenth 
century by a Belgian Jesuit, Gasparis, full of mission- 
ary zeal for this " lone and destitute " colony of Chris- 
tendom.^ He landed at Maskat in 1549, and found 
the Portuguese colony without even a priest. The 
city was become an asylum for Arab fugitives from 
justice and outlaws of all sorts, for whom many Por- 
tuguese were now serving in the fields, having apos- 
tatised these ten years back, and renounced all hope 
of salvation. The good Gasparis preached to them 
under their palm-shelters, and induced them to return 
to the faith ; but being on his way to Ormuz he might 
not stay. Arrived there, he received an appeal from 
the Governor of Maskat, who told him that two natives 
had come a long journey seeking baptism, and that 
all the city was prone to believe and even to die for the 
faith. But he could not leave his college in Ormuz, 
whence presently he was transferred to become Rector 
at Goa; and we search the published Jesuit records 
in vain for evidence that he found a substitute, or 
that the tide of apostasy in Oman was stemmed. In 
the second quarter of the seventeenth century all had 
been lost to Sultan Nasir except the fort of Maskat; 

1 See Epistola Indica, pp. 27, 95, no, i24ff. 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 35 

and to his successor even this succumbed at last 
through the lust and folly of its commander. 

The little which the Portuguese mariners and the 
Dutch, British, and French, who quickly followed them 
to the Red Sea, and established relations where the 
pioneers had failed, had added to Ptolemy's informa- 
tion on Arabia and that of the Moslem geographers 
may be gauged by the first sheet of DAnville's map 
of Asia, issued in a revised form in 1755. On the 
eve of Niebuhr's arrival in Arabia we may pause to 
take stock of the sum of knowledge expressed by the 
greatest geographer of the eighteenth century. 

Compared with the most accurate modern map, that 
issued as the sixtieth sheet of the revised Hand-Atlas 
of Stieler (1902), DAnville's chart will be seen to 
place the peninsula, as a whole, within its true par- 
allels of latitude 12° and 30°, but not quite within 
the true degrees of longitude, as reckoned from the 
meridian of Ferrol. For Cape Had lies at least a 
degree further east than in his projection. Both 
the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf are represented 
as of too small area. The first is too narrow, and 
the southern bay of the second is not produced to 
within a degree of its actual innermost recess. The 
details of coast outline are indicated very summarily 
and inaccurately. To remark but a very few of the 
most salient faults : the forked head of the Gulf of 
Akaba, the uniform southerly trend of the coast from 
its mouth, the deep bay shown south of Jidda, the 
want of prominence of Cape Matraka, the total omis- 



36 ARABIA 

sion of Katar, the insertion of a deep estuary opposite 
the isles of Bahrein, the omission of the Bay of Ko- 
weit, — these imaginary features will show how much 
the British Admiralty surveyors would have to cor- 
rect in the next century. When we look to the interior 
of the peninsula we see the chief villages of the 
northern Jauf lying a degree too far south, and its 
district extended widely and vaguely still further 
south again. The existence of the Nafud desert 
between Jauf and Jabal Shammar is not realised ; the 
latter region with Faid is altogether out of place, 
jostling Teima; and the relation of Kheibar to 
Medina is wholly wrong. Nejd is devoid of any detail 
except what is false. While the Southern Desert is 
left commendably blank, the presentation of Hadramaut 
is very faulty. There is no sign of its great wady; 
Terim lies on the wrong side of Shibam, and both 
these towns are placed some hundreds of miles to west 
of their true position. Oman is diversified with rivers 
and towns which we cannot now identify, and, as we 
have seen, the gulf coastal lands beyond Cape Musan- 
dam are merely sketched. In a word, there is no 
certain knowledge displayed except at a few points 
on the west, south, and southeast coasts and in their 
near hinterland; while D'Anville could make only the 
vaguest surmise as to what lay beyond the border 
ranges. The one important point placed by him with 
accuracy in near a million square miles of inland 
Arabia, and that doubtless at hazard, is the town of 
Anizeh (Aneiza). Almost every other one of his few 



BEFORE EXPLORATION 37 

recognisable names or features varies from its true 
position by at least the space of a degree. Neverthe- 
less his map of Arabia remained the best for more 
than half a century, being, what some of its preten- 
tious successors were not, the work of a geographer 
who knew how much he knew not, and made no effort 
to hide an ignorance which was at the level of the best 
science of his day. 



38 ARABIA 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A. Sprenger, Die Alte Geographie Arabiens (Bern, 1875). 

A. Zehme, Arabien und die Araber seit 100 Jahren (Halle, 1875). 

H. Berger, Geschichte der iviss. Erdkimde der Griechen (2d ed., Leipzig, 

1903)- 

E. H. Bunbury, Hist, of Anc. Geography (2d ed., London, 1883), and his 
classical authorities on Arabia, from Herodotus to Marcian and 
Procopius. 

H. F. Tozer, Hist, of Anc. Geography (Cambridge, 1897). I have not 
found Foster's A71C. Geography of Arabia of much use. 

The translated Moslem authorities are these : Mukaddassi, by G. Le- 
strange, in Pal. Pilg. Text Soc., iii. (London, 1886); Istakhri, by 
H. O. Mordtmann (Hamburg, 1845) '■> IdrisT, by P. A. Jaubert (Paris, 
1836) ; Abu-l-Fidd, by M. Reinaud (Paris, 1848) ; Ibn Batiitah, by C. 
Defreney and B. R. Sanguinetti (Paris, 1853-1859) ; Ibn Khaldun, by 
H. C. Kay (London, 1892); Jihdn Numd, by C. Norberg (Gotha, 
1818). 

My Portuguese authorities are : Afonso d'Alboquerque, Commentaries 
(Hakluyt Ser., London, 1875-18S4) ; Lafitau, Conquites des Porttigais 
(Paris, 1733); Galvano, Discoveries (Hakluyt Ser., London, 1862). 
Cf. Imams and Seyyids of Oman (Hakluyt Ser., London, 187 1) ; His- 
toric Indica, by P. Maffei (Cologne, 1589); Epistolce Indices, etc., 
by various Jesuits (Louvain, 1566). 

The Red Sea itineraries are given by A. Matthaeus in Veteris ./Evi Ana- 
lecta (Hague, 1738). 

Abdfil-Kerym, Voyage de Vhide h la Mekke, tr. by L. Langles (Colin, 
Portative des Voyages, vol. i., Paris, 1797). 



CHAPTER II , 

NIEBUHR IN YEMEN ' 

IT was in or about the year 1759 that the despatch ] 
of a party of scientific pioneers to Arabia was i 
mooted in Europe. The first suggestion seems to ' 
have come from the learned Hebraist, MichaeHs of j 
Gottingen, who expressed to Count Bernstorff, min- 1 
ister of Frederick V of Denmark, an earnest wish 1 
that steps might be taken to resolve the biblical and ' 
geographical questions which concerned Arabia. Had \ 
our Hanoverian monarch, to whom MichaeHs was '] 
officially attached, and his chief minister been men of 
different kidney, this suggestion had perhaps been 
made earlier to Great Britain. The Danish court 
received it favourably. The king himself showed his 
interest in the realisation of the scheme by drawing 
up an elaborate instruction for the explorers, which at 
a later date was published together with the list of 
questions and problems propounded by MichaeHs, A 
ship of war was detailed, and five individuals, all ex- 
pert in some science, were despatched therein to the 
Levant on Jan. 7, 1761. Peter Forskall, a Swede by 



40 ARABIA 

birth and a pupil of the great Linnaeus, was a physician 
with special knowledge of botany; Christian Charles 
Cramer, a surgeon and zoologist ; Frederick Christian 
von Haven, a philologist and Oriental scholar ; George 
William Baurenfeind, an artist; and, lastly, Carsten 
Niebuhr, lieutenant of engineers, a mathematician and 
practical surveyor. With them went an ex-hussar, the 
Swede Berggren, as servant. 

In this party of explorers, singularly well qualified 
and equipped, none was to be before or after other, 
according to the royal instruction. If any preference 
was expressed by the king it was for Forskall and 
Von Haven, on the ground of their greater proficiency 
in Arabic. Each member was to help his fellow, but 
each to have his own sphere of work, and report 
thereon on return. Return, however, was reserved for 
only one. Two of the party died in Yemen, one (and 
the Swedish servant) at sea on the voyage to India, 
and one on arrival there; none by violence, but all by 
the poison of the Yemen air, Niebuhr alone brought 
his report and the incomplete notes of his comrades 
to Denmark again. If to some extent he has inher- 
ited other men's fame, to a far greater extent has 
he earned fame for himself. If he was not the most 
brilliant of the party, if any of his fellows surpassed 
him in energy, courage, and endurance, in intelligence, 
or in his measure of that scientific temper which is 
equally free from prejudice and from laxity, then a 
more remarkable mission was never despatched to 
any land. 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 41 

The immediate goal proposed to the party was 
Yemen. This was as inevitable as fitting. In western 
eyes this part of Arabia had long stood for the whole; 
its fertility secured the epithet " Happy " to the whole 
peninsula ; ^ and it was now the best known. The last 
land in Arabia to lose Christianity, Yemen had been 
the first to renew friendly relations with European 
Christians; and concerning it there was more reliable 
information extant than concerning any other prov- 
ince. The book of Ludovico di Varthema, who had 
reached Yemen two hundred and sixty years before 
Niebuhr's day, had had a singular vogue. Published 
in Italian at Rome in 15 10, it was rendered at once 
into monkish Latin, thence, before 1520, into German 
and Spanish, and into French, Dutch, and English ere 
the end of the century. Incorporated in several popu- 
lar miscellanies of travel, it was well known to Nie- 
buhr, who seems to have had a just appreciation of 
its merit. 

Varthema arrived in Yemen when neither the Por- 
tuguese nor the Turks had as yet set foot there,^ and 
native sultans ruled undisturbed. He coasted down 
from Jidda by way of Kamaran and Jezan to Aden, 

1 The restriction of the name Felix to Southwest Arabia is not in ac- 
cordance with Strabo, Pliny, or Ptolemy, but a mediaeval error, confirmed 
by D'Anville, and often repeated in the present day. Felix was really 
applied by the ancients to the whole of the peninsula. Petraa was 
only the district of Petra, and Deserta the North Hamad, or " Syrian 
Desert." 

' Though, according to a manuscript quoted by Badger ( Varth., p. 50), 
seven Yemen ships had already been captured and burnt by the Portu- 
guese on the high seas. Hence, probably, the arrest of Varthema near 
Aden, 



42 ARABIA 

which was then, in a sense, the capital of the whole 
country, having five thousand families and five castles, 
which impressed the Bolognese as the most impreg- 
nable he had ever seen. Laid by the heels there for 
a spy, he was released after a quaint adventure, and 
finding no ship ready took the north road, passing 
through Lahej (Lagi) to El Makrana (Macarana) 
and Yerim (Reame), and ultimately arrived at Sana. 
He was minded equally " to follow out a desire after 
novel things," and to spend time away from danger- 
ous Aden. No one hindered him, and he made a 
circuit by Tais, Zebid, and Damar, before returning 
to take ship. 

Varthema by nature was no geographer, and more 
concerned with his personal adventures than with de- 
scriptions of their scene. But he let fall many a 
shrewd observation here and there, which served to 
confirm the Moslem geographers and encourage the 
curious to rely upon them further. Thus, for in- 
stance, he remarked on the presence and activity of 
Shiah sectaries in South Yemen and on the black 
(i. e., Abyssinian) element in the population. The 
high situation of Sana he thought worth notice, as 
well as the fair orchards and fountains of all South 
Yemen, the strength and splendour of Makrana, and 
the spice trade of Zebid. In assigning to Sana no 
more than four thousand hearths, he was probably 
more accurate than most computers. The abundance 
of vines and apes,^ the fat-tailed sheep and the semi- 

Cf. the accounts of Botta and Deflers. 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 43 

nudity of the folk in the country districts, are facts 
now famiHar; and the "temple" which Varthema 
saw in " Taesa," and likened to S. Maria Rotonda in 
Rome, had been identified with the great mosque of 
Ismail Mulk. His is a scant record. More account, 
for example, might have been expected of the great 
buildings in Sana. But so far as it went, it proved 
that the ancient fertility of Yemen was no myth, and 
that a relatively high civilisation was still flourishing 
in the spice-lands. 

Five years later Portuguese sails were ofif the coast, 
and within a generation Turkish as well. The secure 
independence of Yemen was at an end. For more than 
a century, however, Europeans were to afifect the state 
of Yemen less by their guns than by their discovery 
of cofifee, said to have remained unappreciated by the 
Arabs until their advent. The new berry, first men- 
tioned by a European writer in 1592, grew so rapidly 
in favour that the trade of Yemen came to be desired 
equally with the trade of India ; and a new competitor 
for it appeared presently in the shape of the British 
East India Company, which sent Captain Sharpey in 
the ship "Ascension" to the Red Sea in 1609. He 
did little but irritate the Turks, now in power in 
Yemen, and fearful for their monopoly of the Jidda 
trade ; and his successor, Henry Middleton, command- 
ing the three ships which formed the sixth expedition 
of the Company, paid the penalty. Calling at Aden 
and Mokha late in the following year, he was trapped 
by the Turkish governor of the latter, and informed 



44 ARABIA 

that the Imperial Order was to " captivate all Chris- 
tians who came into these seas." On the 22d of 
December he was sent off with thirty-four other Eng- 
lishmen to Sana, which he calls Zenan.^ One officer, 
Pemberton, escaped, and a boy fell sick and aposta- 
tised ; but the rest were brought to their destination in 
fifteen days, enduring great cold on the way. At Sana 
they were joined by part of the crew of the ship left 
at Aden. Middleton says he kept no journal, but 
remembers Sana as a city " somewhat larger than 
Bristol, well built of stone and Hme." The gardens 
were on the west, the castle was on the east, and the 
valley, shut in by the Yemen hills, seemed barren and 
stony. Prevailed upon by bribes and influence, the 
pasha let the Englishmen go, after some six weeks' 
detention, and they returned to Daniar, a " town built 
of stone or lime, but in five separate parts, like so many 
distinct villages. It stands in a spacious plain, abound- 
ing in water and producing great plenty of grain." 
Thence the party passed to Tais, and was back in 
]\Iokha four days later. But for more than a month 
thirty men were kept there in durance, till Middleton 
made his escape in an empty cask to his ships, and, 
after rescuing the rest, read the governor a lesson with 
his carronades, which was not soon forgotten on the 
coasts of Yemen. He mentions " coughe " houses, but 
he saw nothing of the production or trade of the coffee- 
bean. 

The fact of IMiddleton's adventure was known 

1 The name of the Sana province at this day. 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 45 

to Niebuhr ; ^ but the Englishman's experience was 
doubtless of less use to his great successor than a nar- 
rative published a century later, when Yemen had once 
more recovered the independence which it still main- 
tained when the Danish project was formed. Therein 
was recorded the story of an expedition made by an 
honourable company of merchants in St. Malo, who 
desired to profit by the coffee trade. Their first ships 
had been well received two years before; and on the 
return of these to St. Malo, one was refitted for a 
second trip, and supplied with a new consort and sur- 
geons. Arrived once more at Mokha, after nearly a 
year's voyage, the captains received an urgent request 
from the Imam of Sana that a physician be sent to 
cure him of a painful abscess; and anxious to cement 
their good relations, the Frenchmen deputed one of 
their surgeons, Barbier, and a certain Major de la 
Grelaudiere, of Pondicherry, to accompany the Imam's 
deputies. These gentlemen carried, it seems, no in- 
struments but those of surgical use, travelled very 
quickly, were kept close in the towns and villages, and 
were not over curious. Moreover, we have not their 
report at first hand, as presented to Louis XIV, but 
a relation put together by La Roque and published 
four years later. This is very bald and brief, dealing 
rather with social than geographical observations, ex- 
cept in the matter of coffee culture, and it is accom- 
panied by a very erroneous map, in which Sana, not 
reached by the mission, to La Roque' s regret, is placed 

1 See p. 107 of Descr. de V Arabic. 



46 ARABIA 

far south of its real situation. None the less Grelau- 
diere and Barbier, the first Europeans to record that 
they had seen the coffee-shrub growing, may claim 
the larger credit of being the first to penetrate inland 
Arabia voluntarily and with exploratory intent. Nie- 
buhr refers to their report more than once, and seems 
to have derived from it his initial confidence in the 
friendliness and security of the Imam's dominion, and 
the good disposition of his deputies in the coastal 
towns. Here the Dutch had had friendly relations 
since 1614, and even the British were well estab- 
hshed ere the Frenchmen appeared; and it was the 
just and prudent dealing of their representatives in 
Aden, Mokha, Zebid, and Beit el-Fakih, which had 
secured that favour to Europeans in Yemen by which 
Niebuhr profited. 

We need not follow the Danish party to Constan- 
tinople, Alexandria, Cairo, or Sinai. On Oct. 29, 
1762, they arrived off Jidda in a pilgrim ship, and 
were agreeably surprised by their reception. They 
found an Englishman long established there, trading 
in Taif almonds and balm of Mecca, and peculiar 
favour being shown to ships of his countrymen. It 
was two months ere they found a Maskat barque to 
take them on to Yemen, and they passed the time in 
prosecuting what inquiry they might concerning the 
inner country. 

During their stay the Danes were not molested in 
a town before and since notorious for hatred of Chris- 
tians. In the eighteenth century Moslem fanaticism 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 47 

was everywhere chill. The nominal Caliph was dis- 
credited, and in the south of his empire disowned. 
Yemen had shaken off his yoke a century before, and 
the Meccan Sharif would have marched against his 
Moslem overlord rather than a Christian. There was 
little of that sense of solidarity which now distin- 
guishes Islam ; and Mecca, the spiritual centre, had 
fallen away to the pursuit of secular wealth, and 
become tolerant of everything save virtuous asceti- 
cism. Though the final victory of the Christian in 
Moslem India was already in sight, and in Europe 
the infidel powers were turning the tables on the Turk, 
these facts were hardly realised generally in Arabia; 
and no such common anger had been aroused there as 
was to follow presently on the aggression of France, 
Great Britain, and Russia. Where there is no anger 
there is little fervour and less proselytism. The tide 
of Islam was, for the time, on the ebb, and the second 
flow, which was to carry it in the nineteenth century 
across the heart of Africa and to China and the isles, 
was not foreseen. Yet, as Niebuhr, and through him 
Gibbon, were presently to learn, " the visions and arms 
of a modern prophet " were already manifested in 
inner Arabia, and the Moslem world was about to be 
rudely revived by the same Arab race that had first 
inspired its life. 

Niebuhr and his companions coasted, without ad- 
venture, by Gunfude to Loheia, and found the low- 
lands in winter pleasant enough. A strong Imam 
ruled in Sana, and the sheikhs, emirs, and dolas 



48 ARABIA 

throughout Yemen were unusually subservient to the 
capital. The Danes had to practise less diplomacy 
than subsequent Europeans have used, in Arabia. 
They began by adopting native dress, and speaking 
of themselves as desirous only to pass to India; but 
as they stayed on and made excursions here and there 
into the inner Tehama, that flimsy pretence became 
futile. No suspicion or ill-will were shown them this 
side of Mokha, and they were never required to con- 
fess God and His Prophet. Travel in Yemen they 
found to be as little exposed to danger as in any 
other country in the world, and the Arabs the more 
civilised the further they dwelt from Egypt. Pro- 
ceeding by land, the Danes reached the coffee metrop- 
olis, Beit el-Fakih, where Europeans were well known, 
not as foes but as buyers of the staple product of 
the land. 

So secure and so little noticed did the party find 
itself there that it ventured to break up ; and Niebuhr, 
hiring an ass and its master, set out alone to explore 
the Tehama, his Abu-1-Fida in hand; while Forskall 
went up to the hills to collect herbs. These excursions 
took our travellers, now singly, now together, over 
pretty nearly all the Tehama as far south as Tais and 
Zebid, and to the lower mountains. Though the holy 
fast of Ramadan had begun, they had no adventures, 
but full leisure to observe the division of Yemen into 
lowland and highland, the contrast of mud villages in 
the former region with stone-built ones in the latter, the 
conditions under which coffee and indigo were grown, 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 49 

and the social life of the industrious farmer folk. But 
the season was drawing on; and persisting in travel- 
ling by day in a land whose mean temperature is 
85° Fahr., the members of the party began to lose 
their health. After a rest at Beit el-Fakih they made 
a push for Mokha through the now parched savan- 
nas, and reached the city late in April, 1763. Trouble 
ensued, and they had some difficulty in withdrawing 
themselves from bad hands and securing a measure 
of official good-will ; for here Europeans were the 
less popular for certain energetic action taken by the 
French East India Company five and twenty years 
before. 

At Mokha Von Haven died. It is pleasant to read 
that — 

" The English sent us six Catholic sailors, who, on 
the evening of the 26th of May, interred the body in the 
European burying-place. All the English in Mokha were 
polite enough to attend the funeral, which was conducted 
as far as possible in the European manner, and with less 
interruption than that of Mr. Ferro, Consul at Cairo, at 
which we had been present." 

Lessened in number, robbed of their best Arabist, 
and somewhat divided in counsel, the party after much 
delay obtained permission to move up to a higher 
spot, Tais, on the road to Sana, already visited from 
Beit el-Fakih; and there it found more refreshment, 
but less security and consideration than in the Tehama. 
Summoned back to Mokha, the Danes were saved a 

4 



so ARABIA 

weary journey in the nick of time by superior order 
of tlie Imam that they should proceed to his capital. 
On June 28 they set out for Sana, but had covered but 
half the way when they must needs halt in Yerim, for 
now Forskall was very sick. There, in a few days, 
he died, and Niebuhr mourned the ablest of his com- 
rades, a man whom every botanist still holds in 
honour. 

The residue continued to ascend through Damar 
and by Hadafa, where Niebuhr reported but did not 
see a Himyaritic inscription, and crossed the crown 
of the plateau to Sana on the i6th of July. The Imam 
received the Danes as graciously as his predecessor 
had received the Frenchmen, and they had full liberty 
to come and go in the city, where the large Jewish 
colony was of especial interest to them. But broken 
in health and rendered a little distrustful by experi- 
ences on the upward road, Niebuhr and his com- 
panions were unwilling to stay. In less than ten days 
they took their leave and descended the steep mountain 
road to Beit el-Fakih; and so to Zebid and Mokha 
again, exhausted by the great heats of August. An 
English merchant, Francis Scott, tended them and 
shipped them on a vessel of his own for Bombay; but 
Baurenfeind and Berggren succumbed on the voyage, 
and Cramer reached India only to die early in the 
following year. 

Niebuhr landed once more in Arabia. He was at 
Maskat in January, 1765, but, in place of exploring 
inland Oman, preferred to follow the original royal 




\^y^'/Z.r ^yf\j^^^^/,. 



rrn 




^i^^'^ /j^x^<i/i.^2L^ 



Carsten Niebuhr 

From a vignette in his Reisebesihreibung, Vol. 3 [1S37] 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 51 

instruction by going up the Gulf and returning home 
overland by Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Cyprus, and 
Asia Minor. The narrative of his travels was pub- 
lished in German in 1772 (and in French a year 
later), with an appendix giving the routes of an 
unnamed Dutch renegade in certain parts of Yemen 
not reached by the Danish party. A greatly curtailed 
English version was issued in 1792. Forskall's notes 
on the flora and fauna were edited by his comrade in 
1775, but it was not till 1837 that all Niebuhr's own 
Arabian observations were given to the public in a 
final edition of the latter part of his original narrative, 
which was prefaced by the portrait, here reproduced. 
This is the sum of Niebuhr's travels in Arabia. He 
had passed less than a twelvemonth in the land instead 
of the two or three years desired by his king, and had 
penetrated but a very short way towards its vast and 
unexplored heart; for Sana, his furthest point, lies 
little over a hundred miles in a direct line from the 
Red Sea coast. The region, which he had but par- 
tially examined, is an uttermost corner of the great 
peninsula, a triangle whose base is about two hundred 
miles long, while its sides are a little more than one 
hundred; the whole not equal to a sixtieth of all 
Arabia. Moreover, this small district to which he 
was sent because it offered most to European advan- 
tage was, as we have said, better known already than 
any other. Western mariners and merchants had 
long been familiar with all its ports, and in the habit 
of going up inland to reside awhile at its summer 



52 ARABIA 

stations ; and Niebuhr, when beyond their usual range, 
was often following or crossing the tracks of Var- 
thema, Middleton, and De la Grelaudiere. 

Yemen, as Niebuhr himself asserts, was the easiest 
and safest country in Arabia to explore. It called for 
no exceptional courage or address, and neither prom- 
ised nor afforded exciting or romantic adventure. Nor 
was Niebuhr of the distinctively venturesome kind. 
He calculated the profit and loss involved in any risky 
enterprise, and unless the balance were strongly to 
the good, refrained when he had plenary discretion. 
His first and last duty, as he conceived it, was to 
fulfil his sovereign's commission by examining as 
thoroughly as he might that part of Yemen which was 
productive, without jeopardising his own life or that 
of his companions, on which the accomplishment of 
the whole task and the rendering of an account thereof 
in Europe would depend. For him, therefore, there 
should be no masquerading in Mecca, or precarious 
wandering with Bedawins, no hairbreadth escapes or 
research for the romantic. 

The primacy, however, always conceded to Niebuhr 
among Arabian travellers is not due to his priority 
in time, but to the priority of his merit. He and his 
party undertook a double task, — to explore the most 
fertile part of Arabia known to Europe, and to collect 
there the best possible information about all the rest 
of the peninsula. Both tasks were carried out in a 
way which, when all circumstances are considered, is 
beyond criticism. As to Niebuhr's fulfilment of the 




pq 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN S3 

first task, the exploration of the Yemen littoral from 
Loheia to Mokha, and inland to Sana, his first scientific 
successor, the botanist, Botta, spoke without reserve: 
" L'exactitude de ce savant dans la description de 
ce qu'il j. vu a ete telle que je n'aurais pas songe a 
publier le resultat de mes propres observations si je 
n'avais eu I'occasion de visiter quelques points dqnt 
il n'a pu approcher." And the latest historian of the 
country says, in like spirit : " In spite of the fact that 
more than a century has elapsed since this expedition 
took place, we have never since been given a clearer 
or more interesting and valuable account of the Yemen. 
. . . No one can overestimate the value of Niebuhr's 
work." 1 

Southwestern Arabia consists of three belts. First 
is the low littoral strip, or Tehama, which extends 
from north of Loheia to south of Mokha, narrowing 
from about sixty miles in breadth to less than half, 
and finally closed by rugged hills before the actual 
corner of the peninsula is reached. Second is a broad 
parallel zone of mountainous highlands, abrupt and 
much broken as they rise out of the Tehama. These 
attain an average elevation of fully eight thousand 
feet, and enclose many valleys of great fertility, in 
which are situated most of the larger agricultural set- 
tlements, except the capital, Sana. This last lies just 
within the third belt, that long and uneven eastward 
declivity of the high lands, which is almost a true 

1 Playfair, Yemen, p. 6i. 



54 ARABIA 

tableland, and merges at last into vast inland desert 
tracts which probably absorb all its drainage. 

The first belt Niebuhr and his companions saw 
thoroughly. They traversed the whole of it, from 
north to south; and where it is broadest, behind 
Loheia, Beit el-Fakih, and Zebid, Niebuhr himself 
made a number of short zigzag journeys, which have 
left nothing for his successors to do. He carried a 
small compass and estimated distance by camel-paces. 
The Tehama seemed to him everywhere a dusty, 
barren, ill-watered tract, with no perennial streams, 
but many large Humaras, of which the Wadys Zebid 
and Meitam are the chief. Only along the course of 
these did he see continuous cultivation, increasing 
towards the hills and decreasing towards the sea. The 
Danish party visited all the towns from Loheia and 
Hodeida to Has and Mokha, and enumerated all the 
principal villages, their products, their industries, and 
their society. In short, from the point of view of the 
topographer, the botanist, and the student of humanity, 
the Danes left the Yemen Tehama an exhausted field. 

Less of the second belt was examined, and that not 
so thoroughly. The Danish area of exploration in the 
lower foot-hills extended from a point due east of 
Beit el-Fakih to Tais; that is, it comprised the space 
between the roads which lead to Sana fron.. Hodeida 
and Mokha respectively. This includes .he most im- 
portant part of the coffee distr' Yemen al-Ala. 
This was visited by Niebuhr and Foi kail from Beit 
el-Fakih, and the terraced plantations 3re traversed 







'c4 ^ '^"'Wi -*^iJ-'^ ^t^"'"- ~^VqrV a * • 'iJ ' ,-*?"a- "^i^i jil "i*^! - ^ *«iA« 



J*. w<5^^ 















Niebuhr's Plan of Sana (1763) 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN SS 

again by the survivors of the party on their way to and 
from Sana. Tais was reached twice, and so thor- 
oughly were the upper courses of the Tehama wadys 
examined by Forskall that Botta found it unprofitable 
to go over his ground again in 1837, and betook him- 
self to points north and south of his predecessor's 
range, notably to Mt. Sabor, south of Tais, which the 
Danish botanist had greatly desired to explore just 
before his death. In the upper highlands of this belt 
much less was done. The Danish party passed only 
along the high-road from Tais to Sana and that which 
runs from Sana to Beit el-Fakih, They travelled 
quickly, and under pressure; and, in consequence, 
while able to report with fair fulness on the towns, 
such as Ibb, Yerim, Damar, and Hadafa, passed on 
the way up, and on Suk el-Khamis and Mufhak, 
visited on the way down, they had little opportunity 
for more than a passing inspection of the intervening 
country. 

In the third and easternmost belt Niebuhr saw little 
but Sana itself and its immediate environment. He 
gave a more accurate reading of its latitude than 
Middleton had given, and a much fuller description 
both of its buildings and its inhabitants. But this is 
less detailed and minute than it might have been had 
not the Danish party been so reduced in numbers and 
so sick and sorry. 

The part of Yemen which Niebuhr himself ex- 
plored is that which lies obvious to those who land 
on the Red Sea coast, and proceed to the capital 



S6 ARABIA 

from Loheia, Hodeida, or the ports further south; 
and, accordingly, it is that which has been most often 
revisited. What he did not explore is a much larger 
area, comprising all the south of the highland belt 
from Yerim to Aden, and the extreme north of it; 
and also, with the exception of the district of Sana, 
all the inland plateau extending from the Indian 
Ocean northwards towards Hijaz, which was the 
chief seat of the ancient Sabsean civilisation. This 
vast area, which presents the most interesting features 
to an explorer of South Arabia, he was forced by 
circumstances to leave for others. 

He learned, however, what he might of it, as of 
all unseen Yemen, by hearsay. In his " Description of 
Arabia " he was able to enumerate some thirty prov- 
inces in all, and give some brief account of their prin- 
cipal settlements, except in the wild northern districts 
of Hashid and Bekil, where, in spite of a Dutch rene- 
gade authority, he could not learn more than mere 
names. Nor at the present day can we do much better. 
Concerning the country east of Sana, he got fuller 
information, and described rightly the land-fall, ob- 
serving the southeastern direction of the Damar 
waters, the nature of Nejran and the Jauf, the an- 
cient wonders of Marib and its mighty Himyarite 
dam. 

Comparatively little as he saw with his own eyes, 
Carsten Niebuhr takes high rank in that small and 
select group of travellers, the interest of whose nar- 
ratives has survived their own age, and is confessed 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 57 

by all intelligent readers of whatever race, genera- 
tion, or special taste. Niebuhr may claim to be not 
only the first truly scientific man who has described 
the peninsula, but one who has seen the land and 
its life with vision as clear, as comprehensive, and 
as sane as any successor's. Among explorers of the 
Nearer East he takes rank with Chardin and Lane. 
Like them he had the philosopher's eye, which sees the 
universal in the particular, and the essential among 
the accident of circumstance. Everything was not 
like everything else to Niebuhr. He had a just scale 
of relative importance, and could distinguish the tran- 
sitory from the permanent features in human life. 
Himself singularly devoid of individual national or 
social prepossessions, he recorded the trivial neither 
about himself nor about others. The common char- 
acteristics of humanity were what appealed to him; 
and while he drew somewhat apart to view them, he 
did not conceive himself as regarding the particular 
people, among whom he was sent, from above. 
Herein, helped somewhat by the accident of his 
nationality and generation, he had the advantage of 
more modern travellers. In a Dane of the middle of 
the eighteenth century the sense of western and racial 
superiority was not developed enough to debar him 
from full sympathy with an eastern people. Niebuhr 
did not see in the Yemen Arabs an interesting lower 
order of beings, nor in their creed and religious prac- 
tice curious parodies of those of a Christian. To the 
usages of the native society he conformed at once 



58 ARABIA 

without a thought of impairing his personal dignity 
or the prestige of his nation; and he bowed to the 
" Imam " of Sana, as equal in that land to King 
Frederick in his own. 

The general characteristics of the man prepare us 
for the particular merits of a book of travel which 
has held its own with more pretentious and attractive 
successors for a century and a half, and has supplied 
a basis and a standard to every subsequent inquirer 
about Arabia. I know no serious explorer of the 
peninsula who has failed to show that he had studied 
it before setting out, or to quote it on his return, and 
none that has spoken of it but with all respect. Its 
great excellence as an authority is due, before all 
things, to the author's severe suppression of himself. 
Not that Niebuhr used the third person when speaking 
of his own acts, or that he deprecated, or omitted 
mention of these in comparison with those of his 
companions. As his own he knew most about them 
and spoke most of them. But so slight was his interest 
in himself that these acts might have been those of 
another, so impartially and impersonally were they 
treated. Indeed, one might think his the pseudo- 
personal narration of a romancer were not all ele- 
ments of romance so sternly excluded, and candour and 
truth so obvious. 

To this impersonal attitude the special circumstances 
of Niebuhr' s case conduced not a little. Not only was 
he charged to make an official report, but he found 
himself heir of four dead comrades, the results of 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 59 

whose unfinished labours he must embody with his 
own. In combining, condensing, and rationaHsing 
their notes, he made his work appear equally that of 
all five members of the party ; and he seemed to relate 
the itineraries and incidents of travel only to account 
for the possession of so much knowledge. He was 
far from insensible to passing interests. Witness 
the frequent allusions to the beauty or uncomeliness 
of the women, and to momentary acquaintance with 
them, which lighten the even seriousness of his narra- 
tive; but an adventure, unless it served to illustrate 
a general characteristic of the people or had its origin 
in something essential to the society, was passed very 
lightly by. When he related the rudeness of a 
young Arab of Kahtan at Loheia, he did not expa- 
tiate on the savagery of his tribe, for he knew his 
conduct to be the result of mere unfamiliarity with 
Europeans. And similarly, in describing the riotous 
proceedings of students at Damar, he neglected one 
of his few opportunities to excite his readers with 
a vision of Moslem fanaticism. The deaths of his 
comrades were stated in the fewest words; their 
qualities summed in a sentence; the circumstances of 
their burial related to illustrate local manners; and 
the party moved on. 

This impersonal attitude inspired from the first 
appearance of Niebuhr's book the greatest confidence 
in the candour and judiciousness of the author's ob- 
servations and statements. Now, after a century and 
a half, we are in a position to know how well that 



6o ARABIA 

confidence was deserved. One scarcely knows which 
most to praise : the aptness and fidelity of his descrip- 
tions of what he saw, or the diligence and insight 
evinced in his statement of what he heard. Under 
all circumstances and at all moments he is thoroughly 
sane. An oasis entered after sultry leagues of desert 
is not a paradise to Niebuhr, but just a lean grove of 
palms set in caked mud or sand. Nor does he rise to 
the enthusiasm that subsequent travellers have ex- 
pressed for the coffee highlands. He found them 
bleak and bare, and their villages in wretched poverty ; 
and he was not more impressed by the pomp and 
parade of the " Imam," — gorgeous, he admitted, 
but disorderly. 

Niebuhr was neither commissioned, as we have 
seen, nor of himself content to put on record either a 
mere narrative of his travels, or an account only of 
Yemen; but he aspired to inform his countrymen 
about all Arabia. Familiar already with Abu-1-Fida's 
descriptions, he industriously questioned all who 
might inform him further, whether in khan, coffee- 
house, or bazaar, from Jidda to Sana, and combined 
and discounted their reports with so much judgment 
that the part of his book which deals with those 
regions of the peninsula that he did not see himself 
is the most valuable, and so full of fact that it may 
be said to have advanced Europe at once from specu- 
lation to knowledge about Arabia. I shall consider 
much of his information in later chapters, when deal- 
ing with the subsequent exploration of other regions; 




Niebuhr's Map of Yemen (1763) 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 6i 

and here, therefore, introduce only an example of his 
perspicacity in treating of a society which is common 
to all of them. Niebuhr had had no personal expe- 
rience of the unsettled Bedawin life which is led over 
two-thirds of the interior. If he saw Bedawins, it 
was in foreign bazaars and not their own black booths ; 
and in Yemen he states that he met with only one 
wandering family, and that probably of true Gypsies, 
not even Slayb Arabs. Yet who has stated the peculiar 
organisation of Bedawin society more justly than 
this? 

" The Bedawins, the true Arabs, who have always 
rated liberty above ease and wealth, live by distinct 
tribes in tents, and still keep the same form of govern- 
ment, the same manners and customs as their remotest 
ancestors. They call their nobles sheikhs or sheukh. A 
sheikh governs his family and all its retainers; when 
these sheikhs are too weak to maintain themselves against 
their neighbours, they join others, and all choose one 
among them for supreme chief. Several of the greater 
chiefs, with the consent of the lesser, choose one still 
more powerful, whom they call Sheikh el-Kebir or Sheikh 
es-Sheukh, and his family gives its name to all the tribe. 
It may be said that all are bom in arms and all are shep- 
herds. . . . Among these peoples the authority is in the 
family of the reigning sheikh, great or small, but there 
is no right of primogeniture. They elect the most capable 
son or relation to the succession. They pay little or 
nothing to their chiefs. Each lesser sheikh speaks for 
his family and is its chief leader. The great sheikh is 
obliged to regard his people rather as allies than sub- 
jects; for if his government does not suit them, and 



62 ARABIA 

they cannot depose him, they lead their flocks into the 
country of another tribe, which is usually delighted to 
gain such an accession of strength. So too with the 
families of the lesser sheikhs; if not well ruled, they 
will depose the head or abandon him without ceremony." 

And so forth with like propriety in many passages 
concerning Bedawin hospitality, tenderness for animal 
and human life, independence of spirit; concerning 
dress and dwellings; concerning the relation of the 
settled Arabs of the oases to the nomads, and of all 
to the Ottoman authorities. It would be tedious to 
quote a hundredth part of Niebuhr's judicious obser- 
vations. He often omits a fact, but very seldom can 
he be convicted of an error. 



NIEBUHR IN YEMEN 63 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The quotations from Niebuhr are translated from the French edition of 
his Travels and Description of Arabia (Amsterdam, 17 74-1 780). 

For the royal instruction see Recueil de Questions proposees h tine SocietS 
de Savants, etc., par Monsieur Michaelis, Conseilleur de S. M. Bri- 
tannique, etc., translated from the German (Amsterdam, 1774). 

Dr. Peter Forskall's two posthumous works, Descriptiones Animaliutn, 
etc., and Flora ^gyptiaco-Arabica, appeared in Latin at Copenhagen 

in 1775- 
Varthema is to be read best in Badger's edition made for the Hakluyt 

Series (London, 1863). 
Middleton's narrative is printed in Kerr's Voyages, viii. p. 361, with 

notes by J. Astley; Grelaudiere's narrative, in La Roque's Voyage 

de r Arabic Heureuse (Amsterdam, 17 16). 



CHAPTER III 

PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 

IF the West for a thousand years before Niebuhr's 
day had known more of Yemen than of any other 
Arabian province, it had been hearing more of Hijaz, 
and regarding Mecca with livelier curiosity than Sana. 
There is not a little irony in the relation of the 
Prophet's city to the exploration of Arabia. Mecca, 
whose influence is directed most constantly to closing 
the peninsula to Christians, has more than any other 
Arabian community caused Christian knowledge of 
Arabia to increase. So effective in theory has been 
its seclusion that no confessing adherent of any creed 
but that of Islam is known to have seen its sanctuary 
since the Hijrah and lived.^ But this very pretension 
to secrecy has served to excite in many Europeans so 
strong a curiosity of the forbidden as to impel them 
to Arabia. And, in effect, great as the hardships and 
dangers be, and small the reward, a show of con- 
formity has enabled nearly a score of men, who both 

1 There is a strange account in Alboquerque's Commentaries (Hakl. 
Ed., iv. c. lo, p. 49) of one Gregorio da Quadra, made captive at 
Zebid, who went with a "Moor" to Mecca in 1513, and proclaimed his 
Christian profession at Medina without taking harm. But one hardly 
knows what to make of this unsupported story, including as it does 
a narrative of Gregorio's subsequent crossing of North Arabia to the 
Euphrates alone! 




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PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 65 

were born and died in the Christian faith, to record 
their adventures in the holiest places of the city, and 
many other Europeans to visit it, who have left no 
account. 

In one way or another the Hijaz had already ceased 
to be unknown even before Niebuhr's time. Not only 
had authors, who had themselves been pilgrims to 
the Ka'bah, or having learned from pilgrims, wrote 
for pilgrims, published descriptions of the city, the 
ways to it and the land in which it lay, but the 
Moslem accounts of Mecca (Idrisi's was placed within 
general reach by Pococke in 1650) had been con- 
firmed and supplemented by at least three narratives 
of Europeans, who had seen more than the coast. 
Here again the honours of priority are with Var- 
thema. All later European pilgrims, who have 
known his narrative, have borne witness to its suc- 
cinct fidelity in so far as concerns Mecca, its great 
shrine and its neighbourhood. All the prospects, 
passes, and valleys which Varthema noted have been 
recognised. Both the general scheme and the detail 
of the Bayt-Allah and its enclosure, as he described 
them, agree remarkably with subsequent descriptions, 
allowance being made for the extensive restorations 
known to have been undertaken in the century suc- 
ceeding his visit, when Mecca had passed under Otto- 
man suzerainty ; and his general account of the city 
as an unwalled and well-built settlement in a ring of 
hills, containing some thirty thousand souls and great 
concourse of traders, is now known to have been exact 

5 



66 ARABIA 

in 1503. Varthema was not Indeed so full or so accu- 
rate in his descriptions of the holy places or the cere- 
monies performed at them as Joseph Pitts of Exeter, 
who, captured by Barbary corsairs while a boy, in 
1678, was forced to apostatise and accompany his 
master to the Holy Cities some years later. He sub- 
sequently escaped in Smyrna, and published a quaint 
narrative. But much more account must be taken of 
the Italian than of his English successor, since the 
latter's narrative was apparently not known outside 
England, and so little appreciated even there that 
Gibbon ignored it. Still less account need be taken 
of Johann Wild, an Austrian captive, who had a 
similar experience in 1604, and published a book 
which better deserved the even greater obscurity into 
which it fell, — obscurity so great that Burton, who 
recalled both the other early pilgrim narratives to 
English readers, seems not to have been aware of its 
existence.^ 

Moreover, Varthema has the better claim to the 
credit of an explorer. Whereas the other early pil- 
grims went only to the Hijaz, and that under com- 
pulsion, the Bolognese journeyed voluntarily, as we 
have seen, to Yemen as well, and with a definite 
purpose to observe and record; and while Wild and 
Pitts tell us practically nothing of their adventures by 
the way, Varthema, summary though his narrative 
be, records several observations made on his road to 

1 Niebuhr refers to it once {Descr. de P Arabic, p. 183). I ignore 
Le Blanc, whose narrative of an alleged journey to Mecca in 1568, in- 
cluded in Bergeron's Voyages Fametix, is almost certainly mythical. 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 67 

Hijaz, which later travellers have confirmed not less 
signally than those he made in Mecca. His is the 
first pen-picture of the Hamad Bedawins, — tawny- 
men, with long black locks, shrill voices, and long 
cane lances, riding bareback in their shirts, — and 
of their black booths " of a sad appearance." In 
placing Medina four days from the sea, Varthema 
was right, where Niebuhr, distrusting him, went 
wrong. In his notice of that city as a small barren 
place in his epoch, he is supported by Pitts, who 
was there about 1685 ; while both Burckhardt and 
Burton have praised his description of the Prophet's 
resting-place. But perhaps the Italian's most impor- 
tant priority consists in his mention of a deep, sandy 
desert, of five days' span, on the hither side of the 
"mountain of the Jews;" for thereby he first advised 
geographers of the existence of the northern Nafijd. 

Although in the middle of the eighteenth century 
the general features of the Holy Cities may be said 
to have been known to Europe if somewhat inaccu- 
rately (as one may see by D'Ohsson's " Tableau de 
I'Empire Ottomane"), little else had been learned of 
the Hijaz but a string of place-names, and nothing 
of its geography properly so called ; that is, the na- 
ture of its relief and structure, the absolute and rela- 
tive position of its settlements and physical features, 
and the actual character of its life. Niebuhr and his 
party, landing at Jidda in 1762, had therefore much 
to learn. Unable to go beyond the walls of the port, 
they had to proceed exclusively by the method of 



68 ARABIA 

inquiry, as in regard to all other parts of Arabia 
except Yemen; and their success was but moderate. 
Niebuhr learned broadly the distinction of the Hijaz 
into a lowland littoral zone and a highland plateau 
region sloping inland; and he stated the general 
nature of the first very justly, — its barrenness, flat- 
ness, and lack of villages; but of the hill country he 
gained only a vague idea, hearing nothing of the 
system of wadys or of the volcanic (harrah) country, 
and too hastily compared it to the Yemen high- 
lands, not understanding the great difference in rain- 
fall, Mecca he credited with being nearer Jidda 
by half the true interval ; and he recorded the name 
of Taif alone among the lesser inland settlements, 
Mecca and the Ka'bah he described with general 
accuracy, and without fabulous details, the latter 
partly with the help of Moslem paintings obtained 
in Cairo; and of the pilgrim routes he spoke cor- 
rectly. But he had nothing to tell of the cere- 
monies, Medina, like Mecca, he fancied was but a 
day's journey inland, and he had little to say of it. 
It was still a small place, he heard, visited by com- 
paratively few pilgrims. Finally he is almost silent 
on the Bedawin tribes, except the Harb; but he re- 
peated, and confirmed awhile in Europe, Varthema's 
fable that there were still wild Jews in Kheibar, al- 
though certain prudent Moslems of his acquaintance 
seem to have suggested that these Hebrew harriers 
of the hajj were no other than Arabs of Harb and 
Anaze, 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 69 

At this point western knowledge of inland Hijaz 
remained for a generation after Niebuhr's visit to 
Jidda; and the only contributions to a better under- 
standing even of the coast during that period were 
made by James Bruce on his way to Abyssinia in 1 769, 
and Eyles Irwin, who was sent by the East India 
Company in 1777 to explore the overland route from 
the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. This Englishman 
tells us, however, of little but his adventures in Yambo, 
where he was made prisoner, and in Jidda, where he 
was released.^ 

Niebuhr's brief and temperate account of the Holy 
Cities had served to dispel some of the mystery which 
had hung about them, and rather to damp than to 
stimulate the spirit of adventure; and the Prophet's 
country would doubtless long have remained immune 
from European intrusion had it never mattered more 
to the west than in Niebuhr's day. But the eight- 
eenth century was not to be spent before Europe was 
startled by a seeming repetition of the history of 
eleven hundred years before. Without much warn- 
ing — for few had remarked a certain forecast of 
Niebuhr's — Arabia was seen to be in furious ebulli- 
tion; and western eyes, already attracted eastward 
by the projects of Napoleon and the fortunes 
of his Egyptian and Syrian expeditions, turned to 
Mecca. 

1 One can hardly take account of such slight evidence as is contained 
in Henry Rooke's letters written from Mokha and Jidda in 1781-82. 
Bruce found nine Indian merchantmen at Jidda and the British colony 
increased. ' 



70 ARABIA 

Since the system of Mahomet attained the limit of 
its extension in Europe, and Christianity began to 
prevail once more against it, the misfortunes of Mos- 
lem societies have never reached a certain measure 
without evoking a movement of religious revival in 
some part of the domain of Islam. This, if instituted 
by Arabs, has always consisted primarily in the proc- 
lamation of the infinite superiority of the one God, 
and the enforcement of a purely spiritual worship 
of Him, based on mortification of carnal desires. 
Such a movement is really one of return to the spirit 
in which the Prophet first prosecuted his mission, 
and involves a renunciation of the compromise which 
he made later with the Koreish and the popular spirit 
of Arabia, by recognising the materialistic Meccan 
cult. In moments of humiliation thoughtful Arabs 
have ever asked themselves if the anger of God be not 
stirred by the association of mortals in a graduated 
scale of honour with Himself, whether these be pa- 
triarchs and saints, or even His prophet Mahomet; 
and by the veneration of so many outward and visible 
objects as are offered by Mecca and by the tombs of 
prophets and holy men. 

In our own day we have seen an impure revival of 
this sort in Moslem Africa follow on a Christian 
occupation of Egypt; and it is worth notice that this 
found its main support in the tribe of best Arab 
blood in the Sudan, the Baggara. An earlier gen- 
eration of the nineteenth century saw the Sheikh 
AH ibn Sanusi return from Arabia, after the French 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 71 

and British invasions of the Moslem lands of the 
eastern Mediterranean, to found an ascetic organ- 
isation, sworn to check Christian encroachment and 
restore Moslem supremacy. More than fifty years 
earlier still Niebuhr had seen a little cloud no big- 
ger than a man's hand rising in Arabia, — sign of 
appeal from Mahomet of Mecca to Mahomet of 
Medina, evoked by the spectacle of the Christian 
advance in India and the increasing Christian inter- 
ference with Moslem shipping in eastern seas and 
with Moslem potentates in the Persian and Ottoman 
empires. 

For nothing does Niebuhr deserve greater credit 
than his chapter on " The New Religion of a Part 
of Nejed." It may be remarked that he was always 
singularly happy in his notes on the essential features 
of Arabian religion. He had grasped the purer prin- 
ciples which underlie the surface of Islam. He knew, 
for instance, that its system is not naturally aggres- 
sive ; " Mussulmans," he said, " in general do not 
persecute men of other religions when they have 
nothing to fear;" and further, he knew that the 
Prophet preached a far simpler faith than his modern 
disciples profess, and that its superstitious elements, 
for instance, its saint worship, are not from the 
Founder. Abdul Wahab, therefore (as Niebuhr called 
the new Prophet), who taught that " God is the only 
proper object of worship, . . . and forbade the invoca- 
tion of saints and the very mentioning of Mahomet 
or any other Prophet in prayer as practices savour- 



72 ARABIA 

ing of idolatry, . . . denying that any book had ever 
been written by divine inspiration or brought down 
from heaven by the angel Gabriel " and the like, the 
Dane held should be regarded as a reformer of 
" Mahometism, reducing it to its original simplicity." 
Nor did he think even that " imposture of Sheikh 
Mecrami," the zealot of Nejran, about whose origi- 
nation of a movement similar to Wahabism we 
also hear, " inconsistent with the spirit of reforma- 
tion," The importance of the Central Arabian re- 
ligious movement Niebuhr appreciated with the most 
singular justice, and its future he foretold with equal 
sagacity. It had, he said, " already produced a revo- 
lution in the government of Arabia, and will probably 
hereafter influence the state of this country still fur- 
ther ; " but " experience will show whether a religion 
so stripped of everything that might serve to strike 
the senses can maintain its ground among so rude 
and ignorant a people as the Arabs." Though it said 
nothing concerning the Sa'ud dynasty of Deraiye, 
whose identification with the religious teacher was 
to be of so great importance, Niebuhr' s account of 
early Wahabism contained no positive error, and was 
sufficiently just to warn those, who, like Gibbon, were 
watching the East, of a religious revival ominous 
enough to be mentioned in the same breath with the 
movements instituted by Mahomet and Musaylamah. 
The man whose preaching caused a movement 
which, short-lived as its strength may have been, 
nevertheless marked the turn of Moslem fortunes 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 73 

after their mediaeval decline, was in reality one 
Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, born at Ayane ^ 
of Nejd about 1696, and educated at Basra and 
Damascus to perceive the decay of Islam. He re- 
turned to his native oases a pilgrim who had seen the 
profane abominations of the Hijaz, and was con- 
vinced that all the Meccan element in the practice 
of Moslems was revolting to God, and that the di- 
vine face would be turned away until men should 
worship once again in the spirit of the earlier pre- 
cepts of the Koran. He held that no one may receive 
religious veneration but God alone, Who delegates His 
honour to nothing animate or inanimate. No bargain 
shall be struck with Him through any intermediary, 
but absolute submission must be made, and the un- 
ceasing confession of it. Utter surrender of self, to- 
gether with the rigid observance of such a simple code 
of morals, as that on which the earliest Moslem society 
in Medina had been based, alone is pleasing. All temp- 
tations to materialism, be they offered by tombs, com- 
memorative monuments, relics or the like, should be 
obviated by the destruction of these things; and pre- 
sumptuous and wayward man must be chastened and 
reinforced by an ascetic rule of life, the better to 
sustain his pursuit of the higher ideal. 

This rule, as Niebuhr saw, was too severely spirit- 
ual to be followed long in all its purity by any large 
body of primitive folk. The submitting of body and 
soul to an abstraction of God, stripped of concrete 

1 Some, e.g. Palgrave, say at the neighboring town of Horeimle. 



74 ARABIA 

emblems, and approached through neither priest nor 
prophet, but by each spirit for itself, would hardly 
be possible in the first place or satisfying in the 
second to any race in the world. Little wonder, then, 
that the mass of the Nejdean disciples fell far short of 
their master's ideal, and came either to make a reli- 
gion of the outward forms and observances of their 
sect, or lapsed, little by little, into those " supersti- 
tious customs which are the support, the consolation, 
and the hope of the weak, ignorant, and unhappy," as 
a very able European eye-witness of their worship 
prophesied they would.^ But the severest critic of 
Wahabism has never impugned the motives or the 
conduct of its founder. Unlike the earlier Prophet, 
the later seems never to have compromised for a 
moment with popular materialism in the interests of 
the establishment of his creed. He claimed neither 
divine inspiration nor prophetic dignity; still less did 
he aim at temporal power. He saw those whom he 
had persuaded force his conception of God and life on 
almost all the vast peninsula of Arabia; but he died 
at a patriarchal age, a teacher, not a king. 

The temporal success of his revival was rapid and 
immense. At the age of about fifty he made an en- 
thusiastic convert of the Sheikh of Deraiye, a town of 
Wady Hanifa near his own birthplace. Muhammad 
ibn Sa'ud was a man of great parts and energy, and 
(hardly less important in Arabia) of very ancient 
and honourable lineage. By the swords of this man 

J 'All Bey. 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 75 

and his house the reformed creed was to be spread. 
In all the history of Arabia small bands of vigorous 
zealots have effected marvels among the loose-knit and 
light-brained population ; and religious ideas, originally 
driven home by force, have remained as convictions 
of the conquered. Ere the Sheikh of Deraiye died, in 
1765, he had impressed his own temporal supremacy 
and the spiritual supremacy of his teacher on almost 
all High Nejd, and welded its local chiefs into a con- 
federacy, inspired by religious exaltation, eager to 
proselytise, and dominated by himself. His son, *Abd 
al-Aziz, a mighty man of war,^ crushed the last dis- 
sentients at home, and turning his arms against the 
surrounding sheikhs, saw Kasim and Dauasir accept 
the new doctrine, and Jabal Shammar confess itself 
half convinced. But he left further conquest to his 
son, Sa'ud, already associated in the supreme power, 
and the latter proceeded to show the world that a new 
scourge of God was manifest in Arabia. 

The Sharif of Mecca was already alarmed, and 
the Ottoman government heard nervously of his de- 
feat in Kasim. Having buried with great honour the 
aged teacher of his house, Sa'ud descended on the Per- 
sian Gulf, where Reinaud was witness of the cruelty 
of his zealots near Koweit, and the Pasha of Bagdad 
tried in vain to arrest his conquest of Hasa. When 
the nineteenth century opened, the Wahabi was strong 
enough to inaugurate the reform of the holy places. 

1 Reinaud, the only European known to have seen 'Abd al-Aziz, said of 
him in 1799 that he was a " lank haggard man and for a wild Arab, very 
civilly mannered." See Von Zach's Alonat. Correspondenz, xi. p- 241 ( 1805). 



76 ARABIA 

He began with Kerbela, the wealthy and corrupt seat 
of Shiah idolatry of All's house, and to the amaze- 
ment of its overlord in Stambul, left it a pillaged and 
smoking ruin. In the next year, 1802, his half naked 
hordes appeared before Mecca itself. The centre of 
Islam could only submit and be purged. All the local 
ceremonies, which implied worship, or even commem- 
oration, of mortals, from Abraham to Mahomet, 
and all traffic in holy things were forbidden; but, 
significantly enough, such usages as seemed to imply 
honour to God alone, for example, the lapidation of 
the Devil at Muna, or the kissing of the Black Stone 
of the Ka'bah, might still be observed, however super- 
stitiously. Would such concessions to vulgar weak- 
ness have been sanctioned by the original teacher? 

Holding on their fierce course, the Wahabis reached 
the Red Sea, but failed to master Jidda, and had no 
better success for the moment with Medina. The old 
Emir *Abd al-Aziz fell by the hand of a fanatic 
avenger of Ali, but Sa'iid returned to the charge. 
Jidda yielded to his second attack, and Medina was 
purged even more drastically than Mecca ere five 
more years had passed. The Wahabi took Ras el- 
Kheima and laid Oman under tribute. By 1804 all 
Arabia acknowledged his supremacy, and the whole 
Moslem world had to reckon with, and conform to, 
his stern creed, if it would make interest with heaven 
at the Holy Cities. Where next would the purge be 
applied? Men reflected aghast that the logical out- 
come of such a creed was ceaseless proselytism till 




bfi 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 77 

all Moslems should come into the better way, and 
that its life was war. 

With the spiritual success of the Wahabi move- 
ment we are less concerned. It is easy to see that Mu- 
hammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab enjoined both a theory 
and a practice which contained seeds of evil as well 
as good, and by less pure and thoughtful souls would 
inevitably be perverted to shallow sectarianism. The 
fatalistic irresponsibility of man would follow on this 
doctrine of unconditional submission to God; and 
conviction of it would survive in eastern minds the 
sense of moral obligation. The peculiar asceticism 
which the Teacher inculcated as a means of grace 
would breed self-righteousness and that fanatical ex- 
clusiveness by whose assertion all men are prone to 
imagine they focus the eye of God peculiarly on 
themselves; and with the mass the means to uni- 
formly moral conduct would come to be regarded 
as means to immune indulgence of occasional im- 
morality. In the latter days of Wahabism, when a 
century had passed since its first propagation, and 
the early hopes of its confessors had been discounted 
by misfortune and defeat, the evil consequences of 
the reform were doubtless more prominent than the 
good; and Palgrave had some ground for his con- 
tempt and condemnation of the hypocritical and futile 
sectarianism which prevailed at Riad in 1863. But 
that adventurer, as we shall see in the sequel, had 
an interest, which he was not the man to disregard, 
in making the worst of the matter. In any case 



78 ARABIA 

let this be said. Despite the state of moribund decay \ 
in which Palgrave represented it to be forty years ! 
ago, Wahabism is, nevertheless, not yet dead, but a : 
force with whose possible recrudescence wise obser- i 
vers of the Near Eastern question reckon still. ; 
Those Europeans who came in contact with the | 
Wahabis in the great days of the movement unani- i 
mously recognised in their doctrine a true reform, i 
and in the men, however rude and fanatical, devotees ; 
of better purpose and purer conduct than the mass of ] 
Moslems, or the official teachers and professors of \ 
Islam in its holiest and most official centres. Of the 
competence of these Europeans we shall treat pres- 
ently. For the moment it is enough to note that the i 
learned and able Spaniard who, calling himself * Ali ] 
Bey, saw the Nejdean pilgrim horde, in 1807, fight- j 
ing for access to the Black Stone, and devastating 1 
the precinct in its savage tumult, saw also some com- I 
mendable qualities in its members. j 

" They never rob either by force or stratagem except ; 

when they know the object belongs to an enemy or an j 

infidel. They pay with their money all their purchases, j 

and every service that is rendered them. Being blindly j 

subservient to their chief, they support in silence every ] 

fatigue, and would allow themselves to be led to the j 

opposite side of the globe." j 

i 

Untainted by the whoredom and sodomy of the , 

Meccans, they were respecters of chastity. Burck- j 

hardt, an even more accurate and impartial observer ■ 

than the Spaniard, who made close inquiry in and j 




fliCi 



IM,A>' OK 






M n« Hr^hMt MmalU rr ^ir flam 






Burton's Plan of Medina (1854) 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 79 

about Mecca in 1814, testifies that the Wahabi action 
there was dictated by sincere desire to put an end to 
abominable practices ; that the Wahabi's promise was 
always observed to however treacherous a foe; and, 
in short, that " to describe the Wahabi religion would 
be to recapitulate the Mussulman faith, and to show in 
what points this sect differs from the Turks would 
be to give a list of all the abuses of which the latter 
are guilty." 

Such were the exploits of Sa'ud which recalled to 
Arabia the attention of many who had long forgot- 
ten it. While the Wahabi emirs were pressing unity 
on Nejd, few regarded them. When the smoke of 
Kerbela went up, Constantinople and Teheran were 
troubled. But when Mecca was taken and held, not 
only did the Caliph bestir himself for the safety of 
his religious supremacy and the integrity of his pre- 
carious empire, but Christian Europe began to specu- 
late on a new convulsion of the east, which might 
gravely affect itself. 

Early in 1807 there landed at Jidda a princely 
pilgrim from the west with great train of servants, 
scientific instruments, and such other apparatus of 
learning as recalled the liberal days of the Moors. 
He called himself 'All Bey al-Abbasi, and as the 
last of the caliphial house of his name, made the ob- 
ligatory visit to Mecca in state, and tried, after tak- 
ing ship for Yambo, to go up to Medina also; but 
he was turned back by the Wahabis. He returned 
to Egypt, and, having journeyed thence by way of 



8o ARABIA 

Syria and Turkey to Europe, reported himself in 
Paris in 1813. A year later a narrative of travels, 
translated from his Spanish manuscript, was pub- 
lished at Paris. For this man was in reality one 
Domingo Badia y Leblich, who had set out from 
Cadiz in 1803 after consultation with various emi- 
nent persons in Paris and London, and been " spoken " 
at Alexandria three years later by Chateaubriand. 
His professed object was scientific observation, and 
for that task he was singularly well qualified by 
knowledge of Arabic, of instruments, and of geol- 
ogy and botany. But much remains mysterious 
about him. He came from and returned to ob- 
scurity in his oriental guise. Bankes, publishing 
the narrative of his successor, Finati, in 1830, sug- 
gested that 'All Bey was a Jew, and claimed posi- 
tive knowledge that he was a spy of Napoleon. Nor 
is it improbable that the emperor, who, even when 
foiled in his hope of oriental dominion, still retained 
hope and sometimes avowed himself a Moslem, did 
despatch this man through Morocco and Tripoli to 
Mecca in order to gather information about the at- 
titude of the eastern world to the new Moslem move- 
ment; and to see if this could not be guided in any 
way to the furtherance of his own designs on Egypt, 
Syria, and the east. Badia seems to have been no 
mere pretender to Islam, but to have confessed that 
creed both before and after he was in Mecca, and 
while he was there, to have been proved so genuine 
a ]\Inssulman, and so thoroughly worthy of his illus- 




M 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 8i 

trious pretension in speech and conduct, that he was 
accorded not only unusual honour and privileges, but 
full liberty to use instruments and take notes. The 
Meccans at any rate, while recognising him as a 
master of European science, cannot have suspected 
him for a European renegade. 

That part of his curious narrative which is devoted 
to Arabia is occupied for the most part with Mecca 
itself, and especially with the Ka'bah and its precinct, 
and with the rites and ceremonies of the hajj. He 
had greater opportunities than his predecessors, being 
permitted even the high but costly privilege of sweep- 
ing out the house of God; and his account accord- 
ingly served to correct small errors in theirs (of 
which he showed no knowledge), while it left new 
ones for Burckhardt to set right. But the tale of the 
doors and pillars of the holy precinct falls hardly 
more within the province of our inquiry than the 
minutiae of ritual observed at Muna and Arafat; and 
we hasten to say that 'All Bey has other claims to a 
niche in the temple of geography. He was the first 
to determine the position of Mecca by astronomical 
observations, — the first, that is, so to fix any inland 
point in Arabia ; and he can claim priority for his 
notes on the geology, botany, and meteorology of the 
Hijaz. Before him, moreover, no European had 
offered any description of the roads leading from 
Mecca and Medina to the coast. 'All Bey, first of 
modern travellers, mentioned the Harrahs or lava 
fields in West Arabia, on which Burckhardt was 

6 



82 ARABIA 

presently to add information; and he first gave some 
account of Wahabite Nejd and its capital, Deraiye, 
though he placed the town far north of its actual 
position. Historically his book is very valuable, in 
that it contains the only record penned by an eye- 
witness of the Hijaz under Wahabite rule and before 
Egyptian intervention. It is interesting to know that 
the immediate result of the establishment of the re- 
formed faith was that all Europeans left Jidda. 

Three years later, while the Wahabi still ruled in 
Mecca, appeared another European, who falls into 
the same category as Badia, but was perhaps less 
of a political agent than he, and certainly a man 
of greater science. This was Ulrich Jaspar Seetzen, 
styled " conseiller d'ambassade " in the Russian ser- 
vice, who for twenty years had trained himself in Ger- 
many to be an eastern explorer. He was a botanist 
of European reputation, a profound observer of things 
and men, and a most learned Arabist, who had al- 
ready spent some seven years in eastern lands, — in 
short, Seetzen was in many respects the best quali- 
fied European traveller who had yet come to Arabia. 
On this account, and because his pilgrimage to Mecca 
and Medina was intended by him to further much 
more extensive projects of travel, he may be regarded 
more properly as Burckhardt's predecessor than as the 
successor of *Ali Bey. Like the former, he was cer- 
tainly only a temporary Moslem, — he seems not to 
have assumed the character before landing in Arabia, 
— and he was qualifying as a dervish for adventure 




Ulrich Jaspar Seetzen 



From a portrait in the Herzogl. Bibliolhek, Gothu, of which a photograph was j 

kndly supplied by Dr. R. Kluxald \ 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 83 

in Moslem lands even less accessible than the Hijaz; 
namely, those Central Asian Khanates, which were of 
peculiar interest to his Russian imperial patron. Like 
many since his day, he formed the project of crossing 
inland Arabia on his way to the farther east; and to 
that end, after performing his pilgrimage, and visiting 
Sana and Aden, he set out again from the coast 
towards the Yemen highlands, with many camels, in 
the character of Hajji Musa, a physician; but he had 
not passed Tais before he was murdered. Who killed 
him, and why, it has never been known; but there 
seems to have been a contemporary impression that 
not mere pillage, but fanatic suspicion led to the 
murder. In any case, Seetzen, who had been sus- 
pected in Mecca and cross-questioned by the Wahabi 
emir, committed a capital error by returning on his 
own tracks. Some of his effects were recovered ; but 
neither his last diaries, nor all his books ; and twenty- 
five years later the missionary, Joseph Wolff, saw one 
of these in Zebid. The tragedy which has robbed us 
of the fruits of this great scholar's exploration of the 
Hijaz and Yemen, robbed him probably of some of 
the fame which has since fallen to the share of 
Burckhardt. 

If most of Europe was content merely to observe 
from afar what was now passing at Mecca, one power 
could hardly avoid intervention. This was the Otto- 
man. Very weak at this epoch, the Caliph of Islam 
had everything to fear from the substitution of an- 



84 ARABIA 

other supremacy for his own in Mecca, and from the 
victorious intrusion of a religious rule in the Sunni 
world, other than that which he followed himself. 
Long experience of the perils of the Damascus hajj, 
and the recent fortunes of the expedition sent from 
Basra against the Wahabite so strongly dissuaded 
from any attempt to throw an army into Arabia 
from the land side or from the east, that the Sultan 
had no choice but to make Egypt the base of his 
operations. Here ruled a new pasha who, by deter- 
mination and energy, had gained real control over 
the whole country, and was at the same time in a 
peculiar sense the creature of his master by the cir- 
cumstances of his origin and appointment. He was 
engaged in breaking up the alien military aristoc- 
racy which had long lorded it in the Nile valley, and, 
that done, would have legions of servile conscripts 
at his disposal. 

Order upon order to invade Arabia was sent to 
Mehemet Ali, but disregarded by the harassed pasha. 
At last the supreme danger which the Porte had 
foreseen manifested itself. In 1810 a Wahabi army 
emerged from Arabia, ravaged the lands beyond 
Jordan, and all but attained Damascus, while another 
attack was barely repelled from Kerbela and Meshed 
Ali. The Caliphate could hardly survive further 
insults, driven thus near home; and Mehemet Ali 
was given to understand that he must save his master 
or be destroyed by him. H Eg}'pt could be trusted 
to remain at peace its viceroy was not wholly averse 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 85 

to the Arabian venture. He had obscure but ambitious 
projects, and to be Hberator of Mecca was to loom 
large in Moslem eyes. He yielded at last, and con- 
structed a fleet at Suez, but not daring as yet to leave 
Egypt, where the Mamelukes were still strong, sent 
off his second son, Tussun, in the autumn of 181 1. 

The period of the Egyptian expeditions to Arabia 
is marked by most important progress in European 
knowledge of the peninsula; but they contributed to 
it indirectly rather than directly. About half a score 
of Europeans in official stations accompanied the ex- 
peditions openly, to whom is to be added an unknown 
number of others who by apostasy or otherwise had 
become orientals; for example, that Agha of Mame- 
lukes, sometime Thomas Keith, private in the Sev- 
enty-second Highlanders, who for a short time in 
181 5 held the strangest office to which surely even 
a Scot has attained, — the governorship of the Holy 
City of Medina; or the Englishman, Atkins, whom 
Tamisier found in charge of a Congreve rocket bat- 
tery in the Asir campaign of 1834. The only one of 
these converted Europeans whose record has come 
to hand has nothing to tell which is much to our pur- 
pose. This is Giovanni Finati, of Ferrara, who in 
Dalmatia had deserted from the French army to the 
Turkish, and afterwards enlisted at Cairo in the 
Egyptian. He served as a renegade with Tussun, 
was in the force which was sent to besiege Gunfude 
in 1 814, stayed awhile in Mecca, took part in the 
disaster of Taraba, and long afterwards told his 



86 ARABIA 

adventures, as far as he could remember them, when 
serving in Syria as dragoman to William John Bankes, 
an Englishman. His narrative is moderately enter- 
taining, and the light he throws, often unconsciously, 
on the condition of the Egyptian forces is instructive; 
but the geographical information he gives is of no 
value whatever. Nor have the Europeans who served 
openly and were men of education, given much more 
account of themselves. With the exception of some 
French surgeons, who followed the later operations 
of the war, none of the western officers, to my know- 
ledge, published his experiences. 

The occupation of a large part of Arabia, however, 
at one time or another by the forces of a semi- 
western Moslem power, conspicuous for its laxity, 
enabled one European of singular talents to make a 
leisurely survey in the forbidden land, and led to 
another making undisguised the first crossing of the 
whole peninsula. Moreover, as we shall see, it brought 
inhabitants of the unknown centre into relation with 
other Europeans, who, from their reports and those 
of members of the Egyptian forces, were enabled to 
compile geographical descriptions of certain regions 
theretofore unexplored. In short, we have to thank 
Mehemet Ali for the treatises of Mengin and Jomard 
on Nejd and Asir, for the journal of Sadlier, and for 
the pilgrimage of Burckhardt. 

The tedious recapitulation of the disasters and suc- 
cesses of the Egyptian campaigns may be foregone. 
The curious can find them set forth in detail in Felix 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 87 

Mengin's history of Egypt under Mehemet Ali. For 
our purpose it will be enough to sketch their gen- 
eral result and to mark certain particular events to 
which the explorations and inquiries of the European 
travellers just mentioned were related. Mehemet 
All's expeditions were badly manned, badly equipped, 
and, especially in the earlier campaigns, often very 
badly directed. But so false did the different sections 
of the western Arabs prove to one another, so ready 
were all to renounce the stern regimen of the Wahabis, 
and so ill armed were the latter in comparison even of 
the Egyptian conscripts, that the invading forces were 
able to recover from disaster after disaster, to main- 
tain themselves in the country, and to advance pain- 
fully from point to point towards their goal in Nejd. 
Tussun, who landed at Yambo, and forthwith lost half 
his army, was nearly two years in taking Medina, and 
then succeeded only by grace of the Harb Bedawins; 
but with the co-operation of the Sharif he arrived at 
Mecca with much less pain in 18 13. There his forces 
rotted, plague-stricken, till his father arrived upon the 
scene, and sent them eastward and southward to clear 
the Hijaz of the bold raiders of Nejd and Asir, The 
Egyptians suffered signal disasters in both quarters, 
and had to thank the fever which carried off Sa'ud, 
the great Wahabi, early in 1814, rather than their own 
skill or valour for present deliverance and ultimate 
success. There was breathing space while Mehemet 
Ali sat down in Mecca and Taif to give the Bedawins 
time and occasion to betray one another, and himself 



88 ARABIA 

the opportunity of posing as a devout and punctilious 
Moslem. 

At this juncture there landed at Jidda one Ibrahim 
ibn 'Abd-Allah, already known to Mehemet Ali in 
Cairo for an English renegade or pseudo-renegade, 
and looked on with some favour by the free-thinking 
pasha. But he was really a Switzer of Basle, Johann 
Ludwig Burckhardt by name, who, after studies in 
England, had been sent to the east by the British 
African Association. In the course of a residence of 
above two years at Aleppo and much wandering in 
Syria and Nubia, he had gradually assumed an eastern 
character, and become famous for the discovery of 
Petra. He now desired information on Arabia, and 
the title of hajji, which might serve his ultimate design 
of penetrating from Morocco to the Niger lands. 

By the world of scholars, and especially by the best 
of his own successors, no name of an Arabian explorer 
has been held in higher esteem than Burckhardt' s ; 
not, indeed (although he claims priority in many mat- 
ters), for the magnitude or moment of his discoveries; 
for his travels covered a less area even than Niebuhr's. 
Burckhardt braved no great dangers, surmounted no 
unexampled difficulties, and passed through no amaz- 
ing adventures. He was of that small company of 
profoundly wise and foreseeing travellers who go 
with ease where others may not go even with pain, 
and know no stirring moments in a land wherein to 
some every hour brings peril. He testifies that he 
was never more at peace than in Mecca, and nowhere 




Joliann Ludwig Burckhardt 

From a sketch made in Cairo by Mr. Consul Salt in 1817 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 89 

in Arabia suffered any hap more inconvenient than 
falls to the ordinary lot of wayfarers and pilgrims in 
Hijaz. Were it not for the many infirmities of his 
body, he had had hardly a moving accident to record. 
Thoroughly versed in the law and custom of Islam, 
not denying that he was a European, but claiming with 
reason to be a Moslem proselyte of some years' stand- 
ing, doing in his daily life neither more nor less than 
any learned and enlightened gentleman of the faith 
might well have done, fluent and correct in Arabic 
speech, Burckhardt never gave occasion to the shrewd 
Egyptian pasha, the watchful townsmen of the Holy 
Cities, the fanatics assembled for the pilgrimage, or 
the rude Bedawins encountered by the way. 

The credit due to Burckhardt is not for seeing 
many things in much of Arabia, but for seeing much 
in a little of it, thanks to his clear vision and the careful 
preparation of his mind by the study of native author- 
ities. His glory is to have described not so much 
that was new to western science, as so much that 
was true then and is true still. He was the first 
of Arabian travellers to realise fully the explorer's 
obligation to serve all sorts and kinds of inquiry ; and 
few travellers have left so little for the man who may 
come after them, Burckhardt' s descriptions of Jidda 
and Mecca are truly encyclopaedic, — the patient har- 
vest of an observant, leisurely eye, for which nothing 
human lacked interest. When Burton had to give 
account of his own visit to the religious capital forty 
years later, he could do no better than quote Burck- 



90 ARABIA 

hardt ; and if he found somewhat to add to his prede- 
cessor's description of ^ledina. it was because the 
latter sickened there of the malady which was to kill 
him within two years. 

Of Burckhardt's actual journcAS in Arabia little 
more need be said. He went straight up from Jidda 
to Taif, passing- through a corner of ^Mecca, and over 
Jabal Kora : and after making all right with Mehemet 
Ali, returned with due piety to the Holy City to 
await the coming of the pilgrim caravans. With the 
assembled faitfiful he went through the full ritual in 
November and December, but missed his cliance of 
leaving Mecca with the Syrian //(/// through the 
defection of his camelmen. Finding, however, a 
smaller company starting for Medina in January, 
1815. he accompanied them by the coast road, and 
perfonned his duties at the Prophet's tomb ere taking 
to his bed till April. On his convalescence he shrank 
from the overland march to Egypt, much as he wished 
to visit the rock monuments of el-Hejr (IMedayin 
Salih). and came down to Yambo, and there took ship. 
The manuscripts of his journal, and his notes on the 
Waliabis. written in English, reached his patrons in 
London shortly before untimely death overtook him 
at Cairo, and they were, in part, revised by IMartin 
Leake; but they were slow to appear, owing to the 
necessity under which the African Association lay to 
issue first his earlier journals of travel in Syria and 
Nubia. 

The " Arabian Journal " was published at last in 



pLjii^ DJ- jyji;jiiij\ 




•^*' -^" >■-':•• -^VJ- 4 / 




itfiiiMfgiiii 



Burckhardt's Plan of Mecca (1814) 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 91 

1829 by Sir William Ouseley, and the " Notes on the 
Bedouins and Wahabis " saw the light two years 
later, making in all four volumes on Arabia. Both 
in quantity and quality these books form a most 
remarkable memorial of a sojourn which lasted not 
nine months, and was spent in part on a sick-bed; 
and the more remarkable since they were written in 
twelve months of precarious health, ended by death. 
Comparatively voluminous, they contain little or noth- 
ing that can be called superfluous, and are filled out 
in very small proportion by personal adventure. A 
better testimonial of industry, conscientiousness, and 
sobriety has been left by no explorer. 

Burckhardt's Journal may be said to have satisfied 
all the curiosity felt at the date of its publication 
concerning the Holy Cities and their neighbourhood 
by students of religion, politics, social custom, and 
local history, by topographers and by economists and 
merchants. There is much in it too for students of 
the natural sciences, especially for geologists, although, 
unlike Seetzen, Burckhardt was not primarily a nat- 
uralist. The extraordinary minuteness and accuracy 
of his description of the Ka'bah and its precinct left, 
as we have said, nothing for Burton to add or subtract, 
and to Snouck Hurgronje, in our own generation, 
little but the task of noting changes that had taken 
place in seventy years, and amplifying and co-ordi- 
nating facts of past history. In the great gathering 
to hear the sermon on Arafat, in the ceremony of devil- 
stoning, and in the wild orgie of sacrifice at Muna 



92 ARABIA 

and tumultuous return to Mecca, there will always be 
fresh matter for an observant eye, and scope for 
novelty of description. But Burckhardt's judicious 
pen-pictures of these scenes of the pilgrimage have 
not been bettered ; and no one who has witnessed them 
has proved himself more sensitive to their ancient 
mystery and actual human interest. Survey with him 
the thousands standing on the granite blocks of Arafat 
about the preacher, who ostentatiously wipes away the 
tears which attest God's special grace. 

" Some of them, mostly foreigners, were crying loudly 
and weeping, beating their breasts and denouncing them- 
selves to be great sinners before the Lord ; others (but 
by far the smaller number) stood in silent reflection and 
adoration with tears in their eyes. Many natives of the 
Hedjaz and many soldiers of the Turkish army were 
meanwhile conversing and joking; and whenever the 
others were waving the ihram,^ made violent gesticula- 
tions, as if to ridicule that ceremony. Behind, on the 
hill, I observed several parties of the Arab soldiers, who 
were quietly smoking their nargyles; and in a caravan 
just by sat a common woman, who sold coffee, and 
whose visitors, by their laughter and riotous conduct, 
often interrupted the fervent devotions of the hadjys 
near them," 

It was with the philosopher's eye that Burckhardt 
looked on the arcana of Islam ; and without straining 
at effect he reveals them to us. The splendours of the 
Prophet's mosque at Medina he thought were not 
what they might well have been : — 

1 /. e., the scant garment obligatory during the pilgrim's sojourn. 







u 



- I 



<^ 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 93 

" The gaudy colours displayed on every side, the 
glazed columns, fine carpets, rich pavement, the gilt in- 
scriptions on the wall to the south, and the glittering 
veil of the Hedjra in the background, dazzle the sight 
at first ; but after a short pause, it becomes evident that 
this is a display of tinsel decoration and not of real 
riches. When we recollect that this spot is one of the 
holiest of the Mohammedan world, and celebrated for 
its splendour, magnificence, and costly ornaments, and 
that it is decorated with the united pious donations of 
all the devotees of that religion, we are still more for- 
cibly struck with its paltry appearance. . . . Whatever 
may be their superstition and fanaticism, Mohammedans 
are never inclined to make as many pecuniary sacrifices 
for their religious establishments as Catholic and even 
Protestant Christians do for theirs." 



With the social customs, humane and bestial, of the 
Hijazis, and especially the Meccans, Burckhardt deals 
fully, and with much appreciation as well as condem- 
nation : neither does he dwell on the darker sides, nor 
is he more prudishly reticent than a man might be ex- 
pected to be who, writing for Britons in the thick of 
the antislavery agitation, calmly stated that he brought 
a Shendy slave to Jidda, but was compelled by stress 
of poverty to realise forty-eight dollars on him in the 
market of that town. His pictures of daily scenes in 
house and bazaar at Jidda and Mecca are elaborated 
with minute detail ; and this serene slave-owner con- 
vinces us that he lived the life he describes, and saw 
below the surface of things. For history he relied not 
only on local informants, but on manuscripts picked 



94 ARABIA 

up in Cairo and Mecca. In prosecuting an inquiry 
he must have been no less diligent and judicious than 
Niebuhr; in capacity for studying Arab books he was 
greatly superior to his predecessor. 

On no point is Burckhardt so observant and enlight- 
ening as on trade. Doubtless to investigate the actual 
state and the future possibilities of commerce was his 
special mission in whatever land he might be. He 
went, accordingly, with extraordinary minuteness into 
the economic state of Jidda and Mecca, making in the 
first town an exhaustive catalogue of trades, occupa- 
tions, and commodities. It was not his fault that the 
imminent opening of the Suez overland route was so 
greatly to modify the conditions of Red Sea com- 
merce within a few years that his labour was largely 
lost. Indeed, he foresaw that this might happen 
should Egyptian obstruction give way, and he was 
not blind to the detrimental effect which foreign 
competition was already exercising on the native 
products. If any illusions still survived in Europe 
concerning the wealth of the Arabian peninsula he 
hastened to remove them by showing how little of all 
that appeared in the bazaars of Jidda and Mecca was 
of Arabia's producing, and how barren the indolent 
and backward population. Even at that date he could 
foretell the collapse of the commerce in Yemen coffee, 
in face of American and Indian importation, fine as 
was and is the quality of the Mokha bean. 

After Burckhardt there was little but minor detail 
left to glean about either the society or the topography 




The Tomb-Mosque of the Prophet at Medina 

From an unpublished photograph, taken by a Turkish officer about iSS ', and 
kindly lent by Mr. Wilfrid Blunt 



PILGRIiMS IN HIJAZ 95 

of the chief centres of population in Hijaz, Mecca, 
Taif, and Jidda. Medina and Yambo had severally- 
been described sufficiently, together with the roads 
connecting them ; and the Swiss observer had laid the 
foundation of an ethnological science of the compli- 
cated tribal society which prevailed over all the land. 
But neither he nor his predecessors found themselves 
in a position to deal satisfactorily with the broader 
geographical features. They had seen, all considered, 
no more of Hijaz than is visible from the most direct 
paths which lead from the sea to the Holy Cities and 
Taif, and on the coastal Mecca-Medina road. Not 
only did all to south of Mecca and to north of Medina 
remain unexplored, but also the hill tracts between the 
cities, the intricate wady system, and the plateau which 
stretches behind towards Central Arabia. That there 
was such a plateau Burckhardt seems to have been 
the first to make known; that its western fringe was 
largely volcanic, a fact known to Yakut, had been 
learned by 'All Bey. But neither of these explorers 
gave information upon the hydrography of the West 
Arabian highlands, seeming indeed to have regarded 
such matters as of no importance. Mountain struc- 
ture, relative elevation, water-partings, and the direc- 
tion of drainage hardly filled, in the science of 
geography a hundred years ago, the place that is 
their due now. *Ali Bey had been provided with 
instruments for astronomical observation, but his 
explorations were confined to Mecca and Jidda. 
Burckhardt, with wider opportunities, used but a 



96 ARABIA 

ship's compass during part of his stay. Their com- 
bined obser\-ations in Hijaz, therefore, while supply- 
ing abundant material for descriptive treatises, made 
it little easier to map the land after their visits than 
before. 

We should do scant justice, "however, to Burckhardt 
at least, if we connected him with Hijaz only. Like 
Niebuhr. he used not only keen vision, but rare 
judgment in inquiry: and in the appendices to his 
*' Journal " and his " Notes on the Bedouins ** he was 
eventually able to give an immense amount of new 
and valuable information concerning all \\'est Central 
Arabia, derived from the caravaners, pilgrims, and 
traders, who resorted to the Holy Cities. Whereof 
more shall be said in the sequel. 

Note. 'Ali Bey. Since the above has been in type, I have referred 
to the Catalan edition of his Travels, the preface to which gives much 
additional detail of his life. I must modify what is said on page So in 
certain respects. He definitely substituted a political for a scientific 
purpose after being some time in Morocco : he was received by Napo- 
leon on his return to Europe, and entered the service of Joseph Buona- 
parte, whose fortunes he followed. He set out once more for Mecca via 
Damascus in iSiS, but died on the road, two marches from Mzerib, of 
d\-sentery (but a malicious suggestion was made subsequently that there 
had been foul play, prompted by British intrigue). As a cross was found 
under his vest, he was denied burial, and must be accounted a genuine 
Christian throughout. His effects and papers were stolen, but in part 
redeemed by the "English lady Ester StenofE" (= Hester Stanhope.'). 
See Viatjes di Ali Bey, etc. Barcelona, iSSS. 



PILGRIMS IN HIJAZ 



97 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Pococke, Specimen Hist. Arabum (London, 1650) ; Varthema, see ch. i. ; 
Wild, Neue Reysbeschreibung eines gefangenen Christen (Numberg, 
1623). Cf. also Itiner. Benj. TudeUnsis (Ilelmstadt, 1636) ; Pitts, 
True and Faithfull Account, etc. (Exeter, 1704). 

'All Hey, Travels, (Paris, 1814, London, 1816) ; U. J. Seetzen, Reisen 
durch Syrien, etc., ed. by F. Kruse (Berlin, 1854) ; G. Finati, Travels, 
ed. by W. J. liankes (London, 1830) ; J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in 
Arabia, 2 vols. (London, 1829), and Notes on the Bedouins and Wa- 
habis (London, 1S31); James Bruce, Travels (Edinburgh, 1813) ; 
Eyles Irwin, Series of Adventures in the . . . Red Sea (London, 1790). 

On the history of Wahabism see also Appendix L vol. 2, of F. Mengin's 
Histoire de T Egypte sous le Gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly (Vdt.ns, 
1823); L. A. Corancez, IJistoire des IVahabis (Paris, 1810). 



CHAPTER IV 

THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 

FROM Taif, Mecca, and Medina Burckhardt had 
looked with insatiate curiosity towards the un- 
explored source of the new spirit of Islam. We have 
seen how little Idrisi had to say of Nejd, and how 
little more Abu-1-Fida or any Moslem writer before 
the end of the sixteenth century. Within the next 
fifty years, however, a better informed treatise was 
composed, and about a century later it was printed in 
Stambul. This was the " Jihan Numa " of Mustafa 
ibn 'Abd-Allah, commonly called Hajji Khalfah or 
Katib Chelebi, author of the great encyclopaedic 
work on which D'Herbelot based his " Bibliotheque 
Orientale." 

The learned Turk improved on his predecessors in 
several respects. He had a clearer general idea of 
the broad divisions into which nature divides Central 
Arabia. Proceeding in his description from south to 
north, he placed in the first belt a great desert region 
which he named Ahkaf, below a fringe of fertile oases, 
— Nejran, Dauasir, and Yabrin, — and the whole he 
called " Nejd al- Yemen." The second belt he under- 
stood as being "Nejd al-Ared," with numerous wadys; 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 99 

the third as the low valley region of Kasim " in parte 
inferiori vallis Vadi Essem " ; ^ and the fourth as the 
plateau of " Schemr," with its ranges of hills. Of the 
character of these belts he gave a fairly correct idea; 
a very much better one of " Nejd al-Ared," for 
example, than Abu-1-Fida's. He mentions Daraeia 
(Deraiye), Rajad (Riad), and all its principal settle- 
ments, allots it a round number of three thousand 
villages, and enumerates its main products. His brief 
description of the main valley could not be bettered 
" vallis ... a Beni Hanifa vocata silvestris palmifera 
pagisque in seriem positis frequens." And it is evi- 
dent that he had had recourse to eye-witnesses; for 
no second-hand authority would have led him to men- 
tion the white cliffs of a range (Jabal Tueik) rising 
to east of Nejd, and falling on the far side into 
sands. 

This account, existent only in a rare Turkish book, 
was probably unknown to Niebuhr; or, if known, it 
was not allowed to dethrone Abu-1-Fida's authority : 
for the Dane still spoke of two provinces only in Nejd, 
— Ared and Kharj, — and of " Imam " ( Yemama) as 
its one considerable settlement. He knew apparently 
far less about the different oases of Ared, their towns 
and villages, than Hajji Khalfah, and had a much 
hazier idea of the north country, where he failed to 
realise that great geographical feature, the Nafud, — 
the " Rami Dah," which the Turk placed in " Belad 
el-Gyuf." Burckhardt either had more trust in the 

'-•'^' ^* 1 Norberg's translation. 



loo ARABIA 

"Jihan Numa," or was better served by his pilgrim 
and merchant informants, for he displayed a remark- 
ably comprehensive and accurate conception of north- 
ern Nejd, and described Kasim, the districts of Sedeir 
and Hasa, and Jabal Shammar and the Nafiid (whose 
width he estimated correctly) without any serious sin 
of commission. It must have been owing to the clos- 
ing of the Wahabite country to Hijazis that he could 
speak so much less fully and accurately on Woshm, 
Harik, Yemama, and the oases fringing the southern 
desert. Concerning Ared, his interest in Wahabism 
led him to make very particular inquiry; and the 
same authorities who informed him so well on the 
history and actual state of Wahabism were doubtless 
responsible for his full description of the city of 
Deraiye. 

For a mere outline sketch these hearsay descriptions 
of Nejd served in 1815, but the result sadly lacked 
both detail and precision. On the main problems of 
relief and structure there was no evidence yet; and 
it was not known how many even of those superficial 
features were omitted for which native testimony can 
be trusted. Burckhardt recognised as clearly as any 
critic how imperfect was his own knowledge of 
Nejdean life, and on that account especially recom- 
mended the exploration of Central Arabia to scientific 
men. The hope, however, which the Swiss traveller 
had based on an Egyptian advance inland waxed 
fainter every day. Napoleon's escape from Elba re- 
called Mehemet Ali from Taif to look to the defence 



HIE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD loi 

of his own house against the universal storm ex- 
pected; and his son, who was left in charge at the 
end of the year 1815, having touched Kasim without 
serious purpose, concluded an easy peace, and followed 
his father, to die presently of plague or folly. But 
Mehemet Ali was distinguished for nothing so much 
as tenacity. Once formed, his purpose held through 
good fortune and ill. Knowing that his tenure of 
the Holy Cities would outlast neither the sojourn 
of his forces within their walls, nor the reappearance 
of a powerful foe, he had determined not to stop at 
Taif ; and having found Europe, and especially Eng- 
land, too well occupied after all to threaten Egypt, 
he equipped a new force in the spring of 1816, and 
despatched it in charge of a worse man but better 
soldier than Tussun. 

Ibrahim, his eldest son, or the son born of the 
widow who became his wife, had many of his puta- 
tive father's characteristics, bad and good. Cruel 
and unscrupulous, vain and jealous, an indifferent 
organiser and an ignorant strategist, he was indom- 
itably tenacious, inexhaustibly patient, and of very 
stout heart, as Europe was to know in due time. Also, 
like his father, he was a very liberal Moslem, if a 
Moslem at all, and addicted to flirtation with such 
giaur influences or inventions as might further his 
immediate purpose. He carried with him to Arabia 
a French engineer, Vaissiere, as aide-de-camp, and 
four Italians of medical skill, — Scoto, Gentili, To- 
deschini, and Socio. But let not their names rouse 



I02 ARABIA 



hope. These officers have left no first-hand record j 

of their experiences in the peninsula. i 

Ibrahim's motto was his father's, — " Slow but < 

Sure;" his plan, in the famous anecdote of him, to I 

" roll up the carpet " of Arabia and reach the prize ! 

at its centre without venturing on ground not first | 

made his own; his actual policy to win at all costs \ 
the sheikhs of the great Bedawin tribes, which held 

the roads to the Wahabi oases. When he was sure i 

of the Harb and Meteir, had tried his cavalry by a j 

series of short raids into Kasim and western Jabal | 
•Shammar, and was instructed in the ways of desert 

warfare, then, and not till then, did he strike his | 

camps about Medina and set forth for the heart of ! 

the peninsula. He fell on Rass, the first important | 

town of Kasim, in July, 1817, and needed all his , 

dogged temper to remedy the defects of his general- \ 

ship. He lost three thousand men, and spent above \ 

four futile months before those mean mud walls ; and I 

the discretion of surrender was with the townsmen at j 

the last. The spectacle, however, of his obstinacy and 1 

his resources determined the speedier submission of 1 

greater towns, Aneiza and Bereida, and what was still i 
more important, the adhesion of two great Bedawin 

tribes of South Nejd, the Ateiba and the Beni Khalid; j 

while bitter experience forced the general hencefor- ] 

ward to repose more confidence in his French adviser. ; 

With Shakra Woshm fell, and the way lay open to j 
the Wahabi capital in Wady Hani fa of Ared. In April, 

1 81 8, the Egyptian sat down before Deraiye itself. 1 




The Wahabi Emir 'Abd Allah Ibn Sa'ud 

Sketched in Cairo during his captivity 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 103 

Here again it was his dogged determination that 
turned failure to success. Hardly able by every re- 
source of persuasion and coercion to supply his force 
with bare necessaries, Ibrahim learned why theretofore 
only Arabs had been able to invade Central Arabia. 
His Bedawin allies were faint-hearted, if not false ; and 
by the crowning disaster of fire he lost in a moment 
all his reserve of ammunition. But he held on till 
more powder and lead were brought up from Medina, 
and, piqued in his jealous temper by a report that his 
father had sent a commander to replace him, he so 
battered the Wahabi forts that the Emir *Abd-Allah 
had no choice but surrender on September 9, after 
standing a siege of five months. The cruelty and 
treachery with which both the deposed ruler and the 
vanquished Wahabi rank and file were treated should 
be laid rather at Mehemet Ali's door than Ibra- 
him's. The former was not in the least concerned to 
conciliate Nejd, for he had no idea of holding it as 
an effective province of his Egyptian realm. He re- 
quired that it be raided and stripped, as he required 
that any other aspirant to supremacy over the Holy 
Cities be broken and crushed. Ibrahim was bidden 
carry fire and sword into all adjacent territories, — 
into Jabal Shammar, Harik, Hasa, and the borders 
of Oman, — to raze all forts and dismantle every 
fenced town, and, that done, to leave Central Arabia 
to be torn asunder, as of old, by its own tribal en- 
mities and brigandage. By the summer of 18 19 this 
sinister state of things was in a fair way to be real- 



I04 ARABIA 

ised, and Ibrahim began to withdraw his columns and 
garrisons. 

On this matter, however, one contemporary Euro- 
pean government, never conspicuous for a right un- 
derstanding of Mehemet Ah's poHcy, was led into 
a total misconception, which proved prejudicial to its 
own prestige, but of fortunate issue for geographical 
science. The British administrators of India had long 
desired to extend their influence in the Persian Gulf, 
and to crush the piracy, which was strangling com- 
merce and fatally affecting the pearl-fisheries; and to 
this end they had been pressing their friendship and 
advice ever more insistently on the " Imam " of 
Maskat.^ In the Egyptian pasha they now scented a 
new co-operator. His troops had reached the Gulf and 
harried the pirates of Ras el-Kheima. What Ibrahim 
had conquered with such effort they made sure his 
father meant to hold. Nejd and Hasa would remain 
provinces of Egypt, and the enlightened pasha, who 
in spite of unfriendly action in the matter of the Suez 
overland route was obstinately credited by British 
optimism with a paramount interest in the promotion 
of trade, would see at once that his advantage lay in 
the assurance of the Arabian seas. 

Without consultation direct or indirect with the 
Egyptians, a British ship of war was sent from 
Bombay to the Gulf in the summer of 1819, and 
upon it went a special emissary. Captain George For- 

1 They had even made overtures to the Wahabi F.mir. Reinaud was 
sent on a mission of conciliation to Deraiye by Manesty, the British Resi- 
dent in Basra, in 1799, ^"d was apparently successful for the time. 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 105 

ster Sadlier, of His Majesty's Forty-seventh Regi- 
ment, commissioned " to congratulate Ibrahim on the 
reduction of Deriah," and " to concert the necessary 
arrangements with His Excellency with a view to the 
complete reduction of the Wahabee power. If," con- 
tinued this officer's instructions, " as most probably 
will be the case, His Excellency Ibrahim Pasha 
should be desirous of availing himself of the aid of 
the British government," an adequate naval and mili- 
tary force would be sent as soon as possible, and 
" the Turks " put in possession of Ras el-Kheimah. 
The envoy, however, was not to pledge his govern- 
ment " to secure to His Excellency the possession of 
any such conquests," but was to sound him as to his 
plans " without showing any material interest in the 
subject," and, by the way, to question the " Imam " of 
Maskat as to the help he also would be willing to give. 
There have been few confidential missions more cer- 
tainly foredoomed to futility. The " Imam " of Mas- 
kat (for so it is convenient, if incorrect, to call him) 
was one of the Arabian potentates whom Mehemet 
Ali had instructed Ibrahim to reduce to impotence. 
Already grievously harmed, and well knowing, if the 
Indian government did not know, the precise value of 
the notorious Egyptian oath, this ruler was now in- 
vited to offer himself and his forces to the executioner 
of Nejd. Needless to say, Sadlier left Maskat some- 
what wiser than he came. A new surprise awaited 
him on the shore of the inner Gulf. He found a rep- 
resentative of Ibrahim in Katif, but the man was for 



io6 ARABIA 

all practical purposes wholly in the hands of the local 
sheikh of the Beni Khalid, and about to withdraw 
himself and his handful of troops. More than this, 
the British envoy was informed that Deraiye had been 
destroyed, and that the evacuation was to be general. 
No one was sure where Ibrahim actually was; but 
wherever in Nejd he might be, he would not long 
remain. 

Sadlier was in sore perplexity. The main object 
of his mission was frustrated already by the retire- 
ment of the Egyptians from Nejd. Had he known 
all, had he known even that Ibrahim had already 
started for Medina, he would doubtless have re- 
embarked for India. As it was, he bethought him 
of the minor counts in his mandate, of the congratu- 
lation and the sword of honour to be offered to the 
pasha and the soundings to be taken " without show- 
ing any material interest in the subject " ; and to his 
great credit, his lasting fame, and our profit he de- 
termined to go up into Arabia. He conceived himself 
simply bound to perform an unpleasing duty as ex- 
peditiously as might be. In his narrative (not pub- 
lished in extenso till nearly fifty years later, when 
Palgrave had drawn attention to Nejd) he betrays 
very little interest in the prospect, the course, or the 
retrospect of his journey. He seems to have been as 
ignorant as his superiors of Arabic, Arabian history, 
and what to expect in Arabia, and to have had no 
previous knowledge of Bedawins and their ways. To 
him, as to most British soldiers, all " natives " were 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 107 

equally unimportant and distasteful. The Arabs said 
of him afterwards that he passed through Arabia "like 
a bale of goods," consigned on the one coast, delivered 
on the other; but go through Arabia he did, with his 
motley suite of Persians, Indians, Portuguese, and Ar- 
menians, the first European to cross the peninsula, and 
the first to put on record what he saw in Nejd. For 
certain things he did see in his stiffnecked way. 

Sadlier started on June 28, went up to the camp of 
the sheikh of the Beni Khalid, and reached " Foof " 
(Hofuf), in the Hasa oasis, after a fortnight's cease- 
less trouble with the " turbulent barbarians," who, 
serving him for guides and escort, comported them- 
selves as the natives, to whom he had been accus- 
tomed, did not behave to sahibs. Had he known 
at starting a few elementary rules observed by his 
successors, — for example, never to pay in advance 
for service, but always to stand by a bargain and 
exact punishment when deserved, — he had perhaps 
"suffered less at the hands of the desert men. To 
Hofuf Sadlier came as the second European Christian 
of whom we have any knowledge, and almost the last. 
The height of the mud walls and the tale of fighting 
men are about all the details concerning the towns 
that he gives; but of the Hasa he tells us it had 
lakes and springs, but no river. 

Sadlier found the Egyptian Kashif of Hasa pre- 
paring for departure, and though shrewd enough to 
realise that the Bedawins were the true masters of 
the local situation, he felt bound, in view of his mis- 



io8 ARABIA 

sion, to wait for and accompany Ibrahim's garrison, 
which was under orders to rejoin the main body in 
Sedeir. The slow march of six hundred camels began 
on July 2 1 ; and stage by stage through the deserts 
the British envoy, in some uncertainty of his ultimate 
fate, pursued the retreating rumour of Ibrahim. The 
route lay by the wells of Rema, and Sadlier notes how 
easily the filling of them and of a few other such 
would render Nejd unapproachable on the east side. 
As it was, his party had too much water, for, strange 
to say, it rained heavily and repeatedly that summer. 
He entered Nejd by the province of Yemama, once 
so fertile and important as to be the single district 
of Central Arabia commonly known to Moslem 
geographers, but now a place of little importance, 
unknown to the Turks ; and so to Manfuha, whose in- 
habitants, notwithstanding their wretched state, at first 
" made a show of resistance, appearing armed on the 
flat roofs," and then spoiled the Egyptians at the rate 
of a piastre for three eggs, and four dollars for a 
sheep. Sadlier noted cotton, diirra, wheat, and barley 
fields, good stone houses and large date groves, irri- 
gated from deep wells. What he says of the " Wady 
Aftan," concerning which he made inquiry, is worth 
quotation : — 

" Of the course of a river inserted in many of the 
modern maps, and made to run close to Al-Ahsa, I have 
to remark that there are many torrents formed by the 
winter rains . . . ; but as they are only periodical they 
ought not to be magnified into a river. It is probable 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 109 

that the incidental collection of water in those valleys 
at a certain season, and the great abundance of water 
near Al-Ahsa, . . . have given rise to the idea of a river 
or torrent having at some former period forced its way 
to the sea. The Arabs at this moment insist that there 
is a river which passes under ground, the stream of 
which has never been seen by any human being." 

He noted also the main direction of the Ared 
mountain ranges as running from northwest to south- 
east, while an outer chain appeared trending north- 
east. This observation probably led to the undue 
northward extension of Jabal Tueik, which Jomard 
subsequently showed on his map. Leaving Riad a 
little to the north, Sadlier passed on to the ruins and 
devastated gardens of Deraiye. After his narrative 
begins to deal with Nejd, the Englishman wastes less 
space in recording squabbles with his guides, and 
devotes more to details of crops and commodities, the 
waters, the state of the country. Everywhere he saw 
the hand of the Egyptian spoiler, — in the ruined 
towns, the wasted gardens, the lowered morality, and 
the dejected and hostile attitude of the people, — and 
in Manfuha he was delayed by the necessity of rescu- 
ing a detachment which had long been beleaguered in 
Kharj by the avengers of four sheikhs, treacherously 
assassinated by Ibrahim's orders. The Ateiba Bed- 
awins had now thrown off all allegiance, and the 
Meteir and Beni Khalid were hardly less hostile. 

Four days' march down the Wady Hanifa and over 
a sand and gravel steppe brought the cumbrous party 



no ARABIA 

to the low-lying Shakra, capital of Woshm; and it is 
a pity that Sadlier said so little of a place which 
no other European has described. It seems to be a 
singularly rich oasis of sweeter waters and denser 
date plantations than ordinary in Nejd. Having 
dragged their Beni Khalid cameleers thus far into 
the bowels of an enemy's land, the Egyptians, after 
their manner, impounded their beasts, dismissed the 
drivers to their fate, and marched over the South 
Kasim Nafud to the half-ruined Aneiza. 

Here Sadlier had reached mid-Arabia, and he 
showed himself duly sensible of the fact by noting 
the commercial advantages of the town's position, 
and giving a sketch of the distribution of Bedawins 
in the heart of the peninsula; but still he hurried 
on, for Ibrahim was said to have halted at Rass two 
days westward. But he only found that though most 
of the army lay there, the pasha himself was already 
far on his way to Medina. The British envoy had 
reached the end of his patience. Ibrahim had evi- 
dently no particular desire to see him, nor had he him- 
self any ambition to be the first to cross Arabia. He 
was only anxious to find convoy back to the district 
of Basra, where arrangements for his safety had been 
made by the local consul with the Muntefik Arabs. 
In this, however, he failed. The pasha's deputy in 
Rass bowed, smiled, and lied, but would not take on 
himself the responsibility of sending the Englishman 
back through the angry tribes. To Medina he must 
go; and to Medina he did go most unwillingly, 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD m 

" dragged a reluctant witness of the devastation of 
the pasha's army." With a large and confused de- 
tachment of the evacuating force, Sadlier reached 
Henakie in seven uneventful days, and after two more 
very hard stages saw the suburbs of Medina, but was 
not suffered to enter the Holy City. The Egyptians, 
who cared nothing for the laws of Islam in Nejd, 
were the strictest of Moslems in Hijaz, and Sadlier 
found himself banished to Bir AH, where was Scoto, 
the Italian harem doctor, who had been through the 
campaign. 

There at last, on September 8 and the following 
day, the envoy had the audiences of Ibrahim, which 
he had come so far to obtain. The pasha was cour- 
teous but wholly non-committal. He wished in his 
vanity to be taken for " a very affable soldier," but 
he pleaded he was no more than an instrument of 
his father, even as his father was no more than 
an instrument of Imperial Majesty at Stambul; and 
the British envoy could neither bind the Egyptian to 
anything, nor learn his plans. A convoy was prom- 
ised to Jidda, but directed eventually to Yambo, 
whither, with Ibrahim's ladies, Sadlier set out after 
a four days' stay. He had seen the Damascus pil- 
grims arrive, and had a distant glimpse of the holy 
walls and whitewashed minarets and domes. On 
September 20 the party straggled down to the Red 
Sea, and Arabia was crossed at last. 

Sadlier went on by boat to Jidda, encountered 
Ibrahim again before his final departure for Egypt, 



112 ARABIA 

and concluded his mission with a ridiculous squabble 
over some second-hand horse furniture, palmed off 
by way of gift to the Governor-General of India. 
This extinguished the last hope that the mission 
might yet bear fruit. Ibrahim may not have been re- 
sponsible in the first place for the slight put on the 
British envoy, but he made no effort to redress it. 
He had done with Nejd, and never at any time cared 
a piastre for the Persian Gulf. The victim of official 
British optimism was detained in Jidda four months, 
and only escaped from Arabia in January, 1820. Ill 
consoled by the unsought fame of a geographical 
pioneer, he was sent on a further mission to Sindh. 
The first report of his experiences was given to the 
world in a paper read, in his absence, to the Literary 
Society of Bombay in April of the following year, 
but, as we have said above, the fuller story had to 
wait till 1866 to be disinterred from the records of 
the Bombay government. Meanwhile the Honour- 
able East India Company seems to have crowned its 
fatuity by duly sending its contingent to the Gulf in 
September, 18 19, and landing four thousand men at 
Katif. These had only to learn that the pasha had 
definitely evacuated Nejd, and to re-embark after 
enduring a severe epidemic of dysenteric fever. 

Sadlier was not the first European (even excepting 
Ibrahim's aides) to reach Nejd. A certain Reinaud, 
who seems to have resided for some years at Basra 
and Koweit, and to have been in the service of Man- 
esty, the British Resident at the former town, was 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 113 

sent by his employer, in 1799, to arrange a reconcilia- 
tion with the Wahabi Emir, aggrieved by recent ac- 
tion of a British warship in firing on Wahabis near 
Koweit. He took ship to Katif, and thence, under 
escort of a foster-brother of the Emir, made his way 
to Hofuf in seven days, and to Deraiye in eight more. 
He stayed a week, was on the whole well received, 
and returned in safety. The only report published 
was by Seetzen, in 1805, who quoted a letter from Rei- 
naud. Therein a few words were said about Hasa, 
Deraiye, the scenery of the intervening country, and 
the character of the Wahabis. Most interesting 
are the remarks on the small size of Hofuf and 
Deraiye, the amenity of the latter' s situation, the 
simplicity of the Emir's establishment as compared 
with his great power, and the farouche hospitality of 
his subjects. Reinaud seems to have found Jews in 
Deraiye, and altogether a less exclusive and sophisti- 
cated society than his successors were to find after the 
Egyptian invasions. Also a certain Count Watzlaw 
Rochwusky, a Pole, is said to have penetrated to 
Jabal Shammar in 1818, disguised as the Emir Tads 
el-Feshr, in quest of horses.^ But Sadlier was cer- 
tainly the first to cross Arabia from sea to sea, and 
the first to describe in detail any central part of the 
peninsula from the evidence of his own eyes. His 

^ We know nothing in detail of his journey, if it was ever made, for 
he has left no narrative. I owe this bare statement to the subsequent 
explorer of Nejd, Prof. J. Euting, writing about his own journey in Ver- 
handlungen der Gesellschaft fur Erdkwide zit Berlin, xiii. (1886), p. 262. 
He quotes from Bes. Beilage d. Staatsattzeiger fiir VVtirtemberg, No. 21 
(Sept. 8, 18S2), which I have not been able to consult. 



114 ARABIA 

only instrument was a good compass, but this, he 
tells us, he consulted frequently, always dismounting 
to take the readings. He not only inquired the names 
of all settlements which he passed or saw (conscien- 
tiously marking a few sins of omission), but was 
very careful to note the time occupied on the march, 
and to make allowance for fast and slow travelling. 
A rough route-map could accordingly be compiled 
from his material, within as narrow limits of error 
as may be in a land where no intermediate points are 
fixed astronomically. Even the port from which Sad- 
lier started was not laid down on the Gulf charts of 
his day with absolute certainty, and the Red Sea had 
yet to be surveyed by Moresby. 

When all necessary reservations are made, Sadlier's 
itinerary may be said to have made a scientific de- 
scription of Nejd possible; and so much is con- 
fessed by the eminent geographer, Jomard, in his 
essay on that region, appended to Felix Mengin's 
" Histoire de I'Egypte sous le Gouvernement de Mo- 
hammed Aly." The foundation of this essay was 
certain information gathered in Cairo from a Nejdean 
sheikh, Abdurrahman el Oguyeh,^ a kinsman of the 
original Wahabi teacher, and supplemented by cer- 
tain road-notes of Tussun's and Ibrahim's marches. 
These apparently were official, but not compiled by 
Europeans, for Jomard is careful to say that he had 
learned nothing from his compatriot, the engineer 
Vaissiere. Shortly before the publication of the essay 

* Jomard's spelling. 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 115 

the bare facts of Sadlier's route became known in 
Europe, and briefly stated as they were in the Bom- 
bay Society's Transactions, proved of as much worth 
as all the rest of Jomard's information. 

Thanks in the main to Sadlier, the longitudinal in- 
tervals between the principal points in Central Arabia 
could now be estimated with approximate accuracy; 
but since both his journey and the Egyptian marches 
had been made in the main from east to west, and 
vice versa, they proved of much less service in fixing 
the intervals of latitude. This may be judged by the 
fact that, though Sadlier had passed through the 
oases of Yemama, and Ibrahim's men had occupied 
Kharj, Jomard could not place the capital of that dis- 
trict within a degree of its true position; nor, in- 
deed, being still under the influence of Abu-1-Fida, 
was he sure what Yemama might really be, — city or 
district. Though Shakra no longer lies, on Jomard's 
map, a hundred miles out of its true situation and 
on the wrong side of Kasim, as Pinkerton had placed 
it twelve years before, the more important town of 
Bereida is still marked to southwest instead of to 
north of Aneiza. As to the regions south and north 
of the area covered by the Egyptian itineraries, 
Jomard appears hardly better informed than his pred- 
ecessors. On the one hand, Jabal Ared is still a long 
mountain range running west-southwest from Jabal 
Tueik to Taif (placed too far north and in wrong 
relation to Mecca), and the desert of Roba el-Khali 
cuts off Aflaj and Wady Dauasir from Harik and 



ii6 ARABIA 

Kharj ; on the other hand, Jabal Shammar is deline- 
ated in Jomard's map from no better evidence than 
that of the Moslem pilgrim itineraries. Its two ranges 
are there, but wrong both in situation and direction. 
Hail is west instead of north of Mestajedde, and the 
Nafud interval between the Jabal and Jauf is con- 
tracted to about half its true breadth. 

Jomard would not give up the surface drainage of 
South Arabia to the Gulf, by the Wady Hanifa-Aftan, 
though he owned to doubts, based rather on Abu-1- 
Fida's denial of the eiiistence of a river in Arabia than 
on Sadlier's objections. It is hardly necessary to say 
that neither Jomard nor any one else knew yet the 
relative elevation of the different parts of the penin- 
sula or the true direction of the Central Arabian slope. 

The large facts of relief in a new country are 
scarcely to be established either by the reports of pass- 
ing strangers or by the evidence of resident natives 
unless questioned with a patience and understanding 
given to few travellers; but, as Niebuhr and Burck- 
hardt found, information upon social features is more 
easily and more surely gathered. Jomard, who had 
access to such military reports as were compiled by the 
Egyptian officers, was able to give tables of the settled 
populations of southern Nejd, and of the Bedawin 
tribes, as estimated from the contingents which both 
classes of inhabitants supplied, or were expected to 
supply, to their Egyptian allies and masters. His 
statistics, so far as they went, were fairly accurate, 
and not disfigured by the exaggeration which was to 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 117 

mark the figures of the next European who should 
penetrate to the south Wahabi country, — Gifford 
Palgrave. From Egyptian tax-lists, possibly, but 
more probably from his native authority, Jomard was 
also able to sketch the products and food of the 
country, its industries, commerce, climate, and fauna, 
and the outlines of its law and custom. 

The statement of these facts was naturally sum- 
mary, and hardly to be amplified from the brief paper 
which Sadlier published at first. It was only from his 
full report that a just idea was obtained of the pro- 
portion of settled to nomad life in southern Nejd, 
the character of the settlements, the circumstances 
under which cultivation was carried on, the conditions 
of trade and transit, and the general state of the 
society during the Egyptian occupation. If the 
Englishman saw with somewhat unsympathetic eyes, 
he saw what was ; and, as it was, he recorded it. 
Other Europeans, more scientific and observant, were 
to come after him to Nejd, but none on whose report 
we may more surely rely. 

The accompanying chart of Sadlier's route is enough 
to show how little he saw of Nejd, and what vast 
territories still lay unexplored to north and south of 
that single line drawn across the great peninsula by 
a man neither over-well equipped for observation nor 
travelling under conditions the best suited to a geo- 
graphical pioneer. But, such as it was, his exploration 
of Nejd remained for very nearly a generation the 
only experimental test of mediaeval information on 



ii8 ARABIA 

that immense region; and that although Mehemet 
AH found he had not done with Nejd. The broken 
power of Deraiye revived in Riad, and, to secure 
the safety of the Holy Cities, Egyptian columns had 
to be sent inland again in 1824 and 1836, from 
! which latter date the occupation of Nejd was resumed 
for half a dozen years. But no western officer who 
accompanied these expeditions (if any there was) has 
left a record of himself ; nor is another European ^ 
known to have seen anything that Sadlier saw between 
the Persian Gulf and Medina till forty-four years 
had passed away. 

1 In using this term I exclude both renegades in the Egyptian service 
and Oriental Christians, e. g., Greeks, of whom Burckhardt tells us there 
were several with the Egyptian columns. These never inform us of their 
experiences. 



THE EGYPTIANS IN NEJD 119 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Jihdn Nutnd, see chap. i. 

I"'elix Mengin, Histoire de VEgypte sous le Gouvernement de Mohammed- 
Aly. 2 vols. (Paris, 1823). 

Reinaud in article by Seetzen in Von Zach's Monatl. Corresp., xi. p. 234 
(1805). He is apparently the person to whom Leake alluded under 
the name Renaud, as having risen eventually to be agent of the 
East India Company at Basra (^Northern Greece, i. p. 308). 

G. Forster Sadlier, Diary of a Journey across Arabia, etc. (Bombay, 1866). 
Cf. Trans. Lit. Soc. of Bombay, iii. p. 449 (1821). 

Jomard, Appendix to Mengin, cit. supra. 



CHAPTER V ,' 

THE EGYPTIANS IN THE SOUTHWEST ] 

i 
] 

THE indirect service rendered to geographical ; 

knowledge by the Egyptian occupation of ; 

Arabian territories did not come wholly to an end j 

with Sadlier's mission to Nejd. We have to thank j 

Mehemet Ali also for the single opportunity enjoyed i 

by European eyes up to the present day of seeing a ; 
region of the peninsula on which Niebuhr obtained 

almost no information of any value. ■ 

This region lies south of Mecca and Taif, and north . 

of Yemen. Arab geographers, who set the Holy j 
Cities and all that lies between and about them 
apart as Haramein, call most of it Hijaz, drawing 

the southern boundary very vaguely and variously, j 

Modern map-makers, who are accustomed to extend i 

Hijaz even to the country north of Medina and Yambo, ; 

often use for the southern country the name Asir, ; 

which really belongs only to its southern half. Nie- 1 

buhr seems never to have heard of Asir at all, but j 

only of a very primitive society dwelling north of the I 

" Amasia desert," which limited in his view that j 

uttermost district of the Yemen highlands, the terri- j 

tory of the Hashid and the Bekil tribes, wherein he "i 



EGYPTIANS IN SOUTHWEST 121 

could learn only names. This society, he said, con- 
sisted almost wholly of tent-dwellers, circumcised but 
not true Moslems, of whom even the heretical Yemen- 
ites made a mock. He reported, however, the exist- 
ence of a finer and more civilised race in the south of 
the region, dwelling in and about the settlement of 
Sade, monogamist, and engaged in the transit trade be- 
tween Mecca, Nejran, and Yemen. He might indeed 
have derived better information from Idrlsi, who added 
certain notes on this country to his enumeration of 
the twenty stations between Sana and Mecca, which 
appear to have formed a basis for the inquiries made 
in the latter town by Burckhardt. The Swiss learned 
better the nature of the country and its society, but 
made the mistake of confounding " Asyr," which 
really designates a large district, with the name of a 
single tribe. How little, nevertheless, even he added, 
may be seen by a glance at Berghaus's map, published 
in 1835, whereon the district of Asir remains almost 
blank. 

The southern part of this region, Asir proper, 
was the single coastal district of Arabia, which ac- 
cepted Wahabism with a whole heart, and under the 
lead of Sheikh Abu Nuktah co-operated energetically 
with the Emir Sa'iid against the Egyptian pasha. Its 
motive was more probably religious than political, 
although the men of southern Hijaz and Asir may 
well have had temporal enmities of old standing with 
the corrupt and oppressive Meccans, and, on the ap- 
pearance of the Egyptians, have seen more cause than 



122 ARABIA 

others to fear for lands which, for Arabia, are rich, i 

It should be recalled, however, that the southwest, the j 

most fertile part of the peninsula, had never really ; 

surrendered old beliefs to the Mahometan system. I 

After a reluctant acceptance of Islam it subscribed ; 

to the Carmathian doctrine when that came westward j 

from Hasa, and never lost a taint of Iranism, which I 

suited certain local traditions of naturalistic cult, i 

inherited from the Sabsean civilisation of the south. | 

Since the focus of this heretical tendency, the great j 

oasis of Nejran, an old seat of Collyridian Christian- ! 

ity, was the scene in the middle of the eighteenth ; 

century of the religious revolt of Sheikh Makrami, | 

who comported himself much as did the Wahabi, and < 

seems to have had some sympathetic connection with \ 

the Wahabi emir, it is not surprising that Asir, lying « 

contiguous on the north, joined the latter' s successor \ 

when he appeared, spear in hand. What Asir did \ 

Yemen would doubtless have done also, had it lain j 

equally open to Nejd and equally sheltered from other i 

foreign influences. I 

Be the cause what it may, Asir proved a thorn in the I 

Egyptian side. To cover Mecca against its warriors ' 

and those of Nejd, Mehemet Ali had to make a i 
strong outpost of Taif, and from time to time to raid 
in force to Taraba, and to the hill country lying be- 
tween that point and Gunfude. We have heard of 
such a raid in connection with Giovanni Finati; and 
another of a more fortunate sort, made in 1815, was 
the pasha's last personal exploit in Arabia. None of 



EGYPTIANS IN SOUTHWEST 123 

these expeditions, however, secured the country; and 
after the mutiny of the occupying troops under 
" Turkja Bihnez " in 1832, the Asir tribesmen, excited 
by the retreat of the latter through their country, so 
seriously threatened Egyptian communications and 
even Mecca, that Mehemet Ali was constrained, full as 
his hands were in Syria, to scrape together new regi- 
ments of conscripts; and by raising his lieutenant 
Ahmed's army to eighteen thousand men he enabled 
him to march on Asir. The new expedition was 
accompanied by at least six Europeans, five being 
Frenchmen, — Vaissiere again, Chedufau,^ Planat, 
Tamisier, and Mary, — and one Italian, Gatti. In- 
cidentally we hear of other westerns, e. g., Atkins the 
Englishman, already mentioned, in charge of a Con- 
greve rocket battery, and a Piedmontese; but* our 
concern is with the Frenchmen; for, unlike Ibra- 
him's aides, these did something to advance geograph- 
ical knowledge. Planat supplied a sketch-map of the 
seat of war to Fulgence Fresnel, French Consul in 
Jidda; Tamisier published, in 1840, a journal of his 
experience during the first campaign ; and Cheduf au, 
who remained for eight years in Arabia and saw 
other campaigns, made, in co-operation with Mary, 
certain notes which MM. Galinier and Ferret edited. 
By these Jomard was able to check two reports which 
Fresnel had obtained from one Sheikh A'us, a fol- 
lower of Abu Nuktah, and to publish a map and an 

1 The name is spelt thus in Bull. Soc. Geog., ii. serie, p. io6 ; but Jomard 
writes Cheduf ault^ and others (e. g., Zehme) Cheduf eau. 



124 ARABIA 

essay on the country. This last consisted mainly of 
lists of place-names gathered from the report of 
Sheikh A'iis, and supplemented from Fresnel's chart 
and Tamisier's journal. 

Jomard's map of Asir is shown by his commentary 
to be more conjectural than its appearance might sug- 
gest, the water-courses, for example, being rather gen- 
eral indications than exact delineations of the drainage 
system. Further notes from Chedufau appeared in 
1843 ^^ the publication of the Geographical Society 
of Paris. The observations made by these French- 
men constitute our first and last European evidence 
concerning Asir, for no explorer has ventured into 
its mountains since Mehemet Ali concluded an in- 
glorious peace in 1841, and withdrew his troops 
aftef making no less than eleven expeditions into 
the country. 

Asir consists, like the territory of Mecca, of a 
hot and barren coastal strip, behind which rises a 
continuous escarpment, defining rather the broad 
raised rim of an internal plateau than a mountain sys- 
tem. This high land both approaches nearer to the 
shore and is more elevated than in the region of 
the Holy Cities, and it has the supreme advantage of 
lying within the fringe of the monsoon rains. Since 
its eastward incline is at first slight, and always long, 
the catchment area is wide, and the highlands are able 
to send inland streams more full and persistent than 
the north can boast. These streams have a general 
northeasterly direction, and the larger of them, such 



I — — r-^ 









-.'* •- 
'^^ 



> i 



liriii^ 



b-~^ 







JL''^u„ -^^ 



■♦■— V ♦ -Al.' " - 



T-^ 



VrlM flt. f.^ ^«( >^ ^ T t 






oV 






I'.ij 



Jomaicl's Map of Asir and S. Hijaz (1839) 



EGYPTIANS IN SOUTHWEST 125 

as Wady Bishe, on whose importance Jomard in- 
sisted, after creating oases along their banks, were 
seen by Chedufau to be flowing still towards the 
internal steppes. The Frenchman satisfied himself on 
native testimony that they were collected at last in 
the Wady Dauasir, and discharged into a perennial 
lake called Bahr Salume, which, accordingly, has 
found a place in most subsequent maps and treatises on 
Arabian geography, despite the fact that a perennial 
lake is not a very credible feature in the scenery of the 
peninsula.^ The outflow of this lake Chedufau be- 
lieved to pass by the " Wady Aftan " to the Persian 
Gulf, and to this Jomard agreed, setting aside Sadlier's 
objections, as based on summer observations only. 
The intervals between the main wadys were reported 
by Tamisier waterless and desolate, and the whole 
country eastward of the watershed appears to be fer- 
tile in comparison of the Hijaz rather than of Yemen. 
The Egyptian columns had that same difficulty in 
obtaining supplies which had disgusted ^lius Gallus, 
if, indeed, it was by an inland route that the latter 
marched to Nejran; but they succeeded, despite dis- 
asters, in penetrating to the southern confines of Asir, 
the farthest points on the inland road being Menader 
and Khamis-Misheit, situated near the head of the 
Wady Shahran, which is the southern fork of Wady 
Bishe. Chedufau mentions oases of many thousand 
palm-trees, producing also fine wheat and a super- 

1 Tamisier (p. 123) heard that these Asir waters flowed northeast "to 
Baghdad," — not so absurd a story if they really drain into the great 
Wadv er-Rumma. 



126 ARABIA 

fine sort of coffee, of which Mary collected sample 
cuttings. 

This information, with which we have to be con- 
tent, serves to correct Niebuhr's. Asir is evidently 
far more like Yemen than he supposed, and probably 
quite as fertile and prosperous a region as Halevy in 
1870 found the neighbouring Nejran to be. Its inhab- 
itants seem to have been then, and still to be, brave 
highland farmers of sturdy independence, considerable 
well-being, and more capacity for cohesion than is 
usual in Arabia. Their autonomy, which the Egyp- 
tians were unable to impair, has since been maintained 
against the Ottomans, although these hold the country 
both to south and north. Asir, together with its pro- 
longation towards Nejd by the Wadys Dauasir and 
Rumma, remains the district in Arabia which would 
probably best repay further exploration; and one can 
only regret that illness and want of means prevented 
Charles Doughty, in 1878, from accepting the offer 
of the Sharif of Mecca to show him Wady Bishe. 

Finally the Egyptians may claim some small credit 
for the first advances made in our knowledge of Yemen 
since Niebuhr. Mehemet All's troops, which first 
entered that country in 1826, continued to occupy 
some part of the Tehama and the lower highlands till 
about 1845; 3-i^d though the friction was great be- 
tween them and the independent Yemenites of the 
plateau, and the local hatred rendered their area of 
occupation very unsafe, the fact that they were in pos- 
session attracted certain Europeans to the ports, who 



EGYPTIANS IN SOUTHWEST 127 

succeeded in penetrating inland. Most of these had 
nothing new of importance to tell. Ehrenberg and 
Hemprich, naturalists, kept to the coast of Abu Arish 
in 1825, and Combes saw only that part of the Te- 
hama between Hodeida and Has, which Niebuhr had 
explored most thoroughly. The fantastic narrative of 
Joseph Wolff, evangelist to the Jews, who succeeded 
in passing the inland frontier in 1836, and reaching 
Sana, contains nothing of geographical interest except 
the fact of an encounter with armed " Wahabis " ^ in 
the neighbourhood of the capital. Nor can much more 
be said for the English naval lieutenant, Charles Crut- 
tenden. His expedition from Mokha to Sana was 
undertaken in 1835 in the company of Dr. Hulton, 
also of the Indian surveying ship, " Palinurus." Hul- 
ton died shortly after regaining the ship of a malady 
similar to that fatal to Niebuhr' s party, and Cruttenden 
had, it appears, kept hardly any road notes. The main 
result to science consisted in copies of four Himyaritic 
inscriptions from Sana, the first gleaned in Yemen 
proper. It was not a favourable moment in the 
Yemenite capital. The Imam was a weak debauchee, 
and prone to suspect all Europeans of being French- 
men in the Egyptian service. 

The French botanist, Paul Emile Botta, physician 
to Mehemet Ali, and commissioned by the Museum 
of Natural History of Paris, did more than these. 

^ These were undoubtedly sectaries, not of the Wahabi, but of Sheikh 
MakramT of Nejran. W. B. Harris ( Yemen, p. 348) states that " Maka- 
rama " sectaries are still found between Sana and Hodeida. 



128 ARABIA 

Arrived at Hodeida in September, 1836, he succeeded 
in establishing good relations with the semi-independ- 
ent chief of the district between Has and Tais, and 
under his protection pushed his researches further into 
the western highlands than Forskall had done. His 
main achievement was the first ascent of the greatest 
buttress which these highlands push westward into 
southern Yemen, Mt. Sabor behind Tais, of great 
repute for its wealth of vegetation, and for the 
independence of its pastoral society. Failure to 
obtain permission to visit it had been Forskall' s last 
disappointment. 

The most remarkable exploration came last. Early 
in 1843 ^ Frenchman presented himself to Fulgence 
Fresnel at Jidda, and, stating that he was Louis 
Arnaud, sometime in the Egyptian service in Yemen, 
but now passed over to the Sultan of Sana, handed 
to the learned consul a sheaf of notes. Fresnel 
talked to him about Himyaritic things, and Arnaud 
promised to return to Sana and, if possible, travel 
eastward to the ancient Sabsean capital, Marib, and 
thence northward to el-He jr. He vanished in the suite 
of an envoy of the Governor of Jidda. Fresnel heard 
no more of him till the following year, when first a 
budget of fifty Himyaritic transcriptions came to 
hand, and, at last, Arnaud himself, nearly blinded by 
ophthalmia. 

He had detached himself from the Turks on reach- 
ing Sana in July, 1843, ^'<^^y thanks to a native friend, 
had found safe conduct with a man of Marib, and 



EGYPTIANS IN SOUTHWEST 129 

a Bedawin, accustomed to conveying durra and salt 
between the capital and the east country. At that time 
what lies beyond the plateau which rises to east of 
the vale of Sana was for all practical purposes inde- 
pendent of the ruling power in Yemen and obedient 
only to its own sharifs and sheikhs; and so, indeed, 
it is still. Arnaud's venture was therefore of very 
doubtful issue, and he had to take all precaution not 
to be known for a European. He found anarchy begin 
within twenty miles, and his small caravan, often 
stopped by Bedawin " blackmailers," passed the pla- 
teau in great fear. At Khariba Sabaean ruins were 
discovered, and the party, after making a long gradual 
descent into an extensive well-watered plain with 
streams running to southward and eastward, reached 
the famous dam of Marib, the fabled work of Solo- 
mon's Sheban queen, Balkis. Here Arnaud found 
more than enough to do among rock-inscriptions and 
sculptures, which his Bedawin guide, whether jealous 
of buried gold or really solicitous for his charge's life, 
would scarcely allow him to study. In the village 
itself he was well received at first by the sharif, and 
heard much of interest; among other things a tale 
of a white man from Hadramaut, who had " written 
the stones " some years before and vanished as myste- 
riously as he came. Later he had word of another in 
Hadramaut itself who " knew no more Arabic than 
the Moslem profession of faith," and this Arnaud 
afterwards gathered was Von Wrede. But the curi- 
osity and hostility of the Bedawins soon awoke. The 

9 



I30 ARABIA 

stranger, though a professed Mughrabi, neither prayed 
nor knew the desert ways, and must, they thought, 
be an Englishman from Aden, come to spy out the 
land. But in the end no great harm came to Arnaud. 
The Sharif's own son showed him the sights of Marib; 
and when the caravan was ready to return he was 
allowed to depart. He lingered to copy the texts of 
Khariba, and regained Sana in safety, having endured 
no worse hap on the road than the quips and scorns 
of Bedawin boors. 

One may refuse to follow Albrecht Zehme in reck- 
oning Arnaud among the half-dozen greatest pioneers 
of Arabian exploration. Such company is too high 
for one who penetrated but two days' journey into 
unknown regions, and showed little sense of the geo- 
graphical interests which he had opportunity to fur- 
ther.^ But it must be allowed that the Frenchman, 
pushing thus alone into a land without settled govern- 
ment, himself neither disguised nor abjuring Chris- 
tianity, took greater risk of evil than any earlier 
European traveller in the Peninsula. The conduct of 
the Bedawins whom he met, though perhaps threaten- 
ing less serious danger than he feared, was wellnigh 
intolerable to a highly nervous man, new to desert 
life. It was such conduct as the nomads seldom fail 
to show on the confines of settled government towards 

1 I am aware that Arnaud's veracity has been doubted. The use 
made of his notes in the fabulous narrative of Du Couret (by Alexandre 
Dumas ?) may have created a false impression. I note that an editorial 
note on Glaser's visit to Marib in Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1887, 
p. 27, ignores Arnaud, speaking of Halevy as Glaser's only predecessor. 
But the testimony in Arnaud's favour is overwhelming. 



EGYPTIANS IN SOUTHWEST 131 

any stranger not strongly protected, — conduct such 
as Sadlier, Wrede, Hirsch, and Doughty have all had 
to endure from suspicious savages; and if Arnaud 
shows himself in his narrative more querulously pre- 
occupied with it than does his successor in the same 
region, Joseph Halevy, who certainly suffered not less 
contumely, it should be remembered that he wrote his 
report for Fresnel when hardly recovered from terrible 
months of sickness and semi-blindness. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

E. F. Jomard, in Appendix to F. Mengin, Histoire Sommaire de VEgypte 
(Paris, 1839) ; Chedufau, in Bull. Soc. Geogr., 2d serie, p. io6. 

M, O. Tamisier, Voyage en Arable (Paris, 1840). 

C. G. Ehrenberg and W. F. Hemprich, Naturgeschichtliche Reisen durch 
Nord-Afrika und West-Asien, etc. (Berlin, 1828). See also Bombay 
Asiatic Soc, 1841, pp. 72, 129, 322, 390. 

M. J. Wolff, Missionary Journal (London, 1839) ; C. Cruttenden, mjourn. 
R. Geog. Soc, 1838, p. 267 ; Trans. R. G. S. of Bombay, i. p. 39; E. 
Combes and M. O. Tamisier, Voyage en Abyssinie etl'Arabie Hetireuse 
(Paris, 1851) ; P. E. Botta, Relation d'un Voyage dans r Yemen (Paris, 
1841); L. Arnaud, m Journal Asiatique, 4me serie, v. (Paris, 1845). 



CHAPTER VI 

THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 

AFTER the Egyptian occupation a belt of compar- 
atively well-known territory lay across the cen- 
tral blank of Arabian maps. Its western end filled the 
interval between the twenty-seventh and the thirteenth 
parallels ; but eastward it was contracted to the space 
of a single degree. Of the immense areas which 
stretched unexplored on either hand of this wedge- 
shaped belt, that on the south was equal to about half 
the peninsula. Much of it had been reported desert 
both by the Moslem geographers and by the informants 
of Niebuhr and Burckhardt; but certain parts were 
known to have been, and still to be, the abode of settled 
societies, — for example, the Hadramaut, long famous 
for spices, and Oman, first scene of European settle- 
ment in Arabia. Even the coasts of these territories 
were but imperfectly known. The Indian surveying 
ship " Palinurus," whose cruises in the Red Sea, 
under Moresby, Carless, and Haines, had resulted in 
the western outline of the peninsula being laid down 
with tolerable accuracy, had made only a rapid recon- 
naissance of the southeastern coast; and though Cap- 
tain Haines made valuable notes upon it, which were 



134 ARABIA 

published in 1839 and 1845 ^y the Royal Geographical 
Society, and ten years later were supplemented by 
Captain Owen of the " Leven," the chart of the shore 
from Misena to Ras el-Had remained a sketch ; and that 
of the coast of Oman itself, though surveyed at various 
periods since 1780, was found to be none too precisely 
drawn in the middle of the succeeding century. 

Certain parts of Oman had been in western hands, 
as we have seen, up to the middle of the seventeenth 
century without our knowledge of the land being sen- 
sibly improved. Shortly after the Portuguese evacu- 
ation, the Dutchman, Struys, called at Maskat, and 
found it a flourishing town, of which he has left an 
interesting drawing; but for a century after his day 
Oman seems to have remained unvisited by Euro- 
peans. In 1765 came Niebuhr. He did not proceed 
inland, but during his short stay at Maskat succeeded 
in fixing the position of the town and making some 
inquiry about the province. The information he got 
was vague. The land was all mountain to the sea, 
and had two perennial streams, the Wadys Sib and 
Massora. In the interior lay a strong town, Rastak, 
on which depended another strong inland place> 
Nezwa, and the coast from Borka. to Sib; and 
somewhere, in undefined relation to these places, rose 
a high range, Jabal Akhdar, rich in vines and cane. 
This scanty knowledge was not materially improved 
by the East Indian expeditions which operated on 
the coast against the Yass and Jauasmi pirates after 
1807, twice penetrated inland in the south to chastise 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 135 

the Abu Ali tribesmen, and finally brought all under 
tlie " Pax Britannica " by the truce of 1820. Nor 
again was much learned from the book of Vincenzo 
Maurizi, who, under the name Sheikh Mansur, acted 
as surgeon and naval commander to Sayyid Sa'id of 
Maskat for some half-dozen years prior to 18 13. His 
supplementary letters, the publication of which was 
promised in this book, have never appeared, — the 
more is the pity, for Maurizi seems to have gone inland 
at least as far as Rastak. 

The East Indian authorities had obvious and strong 
reason for desiring fuller knowledge of a territory so 
intimately related to their lucrative interests in the 
Persian Gulf; and they were specially concerned to 
gauge the effective power exercised in interior Oman 
by the ruler of Maskat, who had thrown in his lot with 
them against the rival Dutch and French since 1798, 
and been saved from the Wahabi in 1809. It was 
accordingly with an Indian commission that, towards 
the close of 1835, a naval lieutenant, James Wellsted, 
late of the " Palinurus," landed at Maskat from a 
Bombay schooner, and solicited permission of the 
Imam to visit the interior of his territories. Wellsted 
had been long engaged on the survey of the west 
and south coasts of the peninsula, had explored So- 
cotra, and, in the spring of this same year, made in 
Cruttenden's company from Ba'1-Haf a short but 
venturesome excursion, the first attempted by a 
European, into the southern interior, which resulted 
in the discoverv of the famous ruins of Nakab 



136 ARABIA 

al-Hajar. Rumours of the hidden valleys of Hadra- 
maut, which he heard thereabout, fired Wellsted's ready- 
imagination, and failing to overcome native opposi- 
tion on the south coast, he obtained the leave of the 
Indian government to join the Asir expedition of 
1835, and explore a way to Hadramaut overland. 
But when news arrived that a great disaster had be- 
fallen the Egyptians in that spring, he bethought him 
of Oman and its friendly ruler, and went to Maskat 
instead, hoping he might reach his ultimate gbal from 
the eastern or northeastern side. The Imam, anxious 
to stand well in the eyes of the Indian government, 
and knowing, doubtless, that the fate of Wellsted's 
project would be decided in the interior by another 
authority than his, offered facilities, so long as the 
Englishman should be within his sphere of protection. 
Weilsted, therefore, made his exploration of Oman 
under very favourable circumstances and without seri- 
ous risk until he tried to enter the northern territory, 
where the Wahabi's writ ran more strongly than the 
Imam's. In the first instance he took ship to Sur 
and visited the extreme southwest of Oman, — a lean, 
featureless land on the fringe of the great central 
southern desert, which was then rather in the hands 
of Bedawins than of the Imam. Since these same 
Bedawins of Abu Ali and Abu Hasan, who had 
embraced Wahabism, had been attacked not above 
half a generation before by British Sepoy expeditions, 
acting in the interest of the Imam, this hardly seemed 
a wise excursion for a British officer to make; but 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 137 

the remnant of the tribes left after Sir Lionel Smith's 
massacre of their braves had learned their lesson, 
and now looked for British favour. They entertained 
Wellsted hospitably, and conducted him two days' 
journey eastward into the steppe, where he met with 
wandering families of the Jeneba, who live on the 
rare habitable spots of the southern littoral as far 
west as Mahra, half shepherds, half fishermen, and 
wholly pirates on occasion. 

These families offered to take the stranger forward, 
if so minded, to their western confines; but, having 
set his heart on Nejd, Wellsted returned to the camp 
of his hosts, and turned northwestward up the long 
Wady Betha towards the central mountains, amazed 
at the artificial fertility of oases here and there. The 
method of obtaining water struck him " as more 
Chinese than Arabian " (evidently he knew nothing 
of Persian Kanats) : — 

" I saw several [shafts] which had been sunk o a 
depth of forty feet. A channel from this fountainhead 
is then, with a very slight descent, bored in the direc- 
tion in which it is to be conveyed, leaving apertures at 
regular distances, to afford light and air to those who 
are occasionally sent to keep it clean. In this manner 
water is frequently conducted from a distance of six or 
eight miles." 

Oman must have learned from Persia, with which 
it had had intimate relations since its conquest by 
Nushirvan, the secret of this elaborate engineering. 
One may doubt if it was known to the Arabians of 



138 ARABIA 

antiquity. For, if the lower oases of Oman were 
half so luxuriant then, as Wellsted and subsequently 
Miles have found them to be, Yemen had hardly 
enjoyed so great a fame as the one fertile Arabian 
region. The larger settlements in this region are 
quite urban. In Ibra, — 

" to avoid the damp, and catch an occasional beam of the 
sun above the trees, [the houses] are usually very lofty. 
A parapet encircling the upper part is turreted; and on 
some of the largest houses guns are mounted. The win- 
dows and doors have the Saracenic arch, and every part 
of the building is profusely decorated with ornaments of 
stucco in bas-relief, some in very good taste. The doors 
are also cased with brass, and have rings and other mas- 
sive ornaments of the same metal." 

In Semed Wellsted was surprised by another 
Englishman, Lieutenant Whitelock, who had come 
up through the rugged hill country immediately west 
of Maskat, probably by the Wady Semail; and in 
his company he turned due east along the southern 
base of the high mountains, now well known as the 
main range of Oman, Jabal Akhdar. The travellers 
saw with admiration the paradise created by its 
drainage : — 

" ' Is this Arabia,' we said, ' this the country we have 
looked on heretofore as a desert ? ' Verdant fields of 
grain and sugarcane, stretching along for miles, are 
before us; streams of water, flowing in all directions, 
intersect our path ; and the happy and contented ap- 
pearance of the peasants agreeably helps to fill up the 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 139 

smiling picture. The atmosphere was delightfully clear 
and pure." (December 21st.) 

In this region there is even marsh, and the plants, 
which make the modern wealth of Egypt, the cotton 
shrub and the sugarcane, grow abundantly. After 
reaching Nezwa, heard of by Niebuhr and now 
found to be the chief ultramontane stronghold of 
Oman, the Englishmen made a circular tour in the 
hill country, finding the ridges bare and chill, but 
the valleys very fertile and well planted with vine 
and almond. Wellsted made out that this " granite " 
range (really conglomerate with cretaceous crest) 
stretches for about thirty miles east to west, and has 
a maximum breadth of fourteen miles with very 
steep declivities north and south. From a boiling- 
point observation taken at Shiraizi, he computed the 
average summit height at seven thousand feet, con- 
siderably below the true mark. The inhabitants (Beni 
Riyam) were few, pagan, and independent. Indeed, 
everywhere in the interior of Oman, Wellsted found 
the Imam to exercise a purely nominal suzerainty, 
and to command neither money nor men. 

Having returned to Nezwa, the Englishmen parted. 
Whitelock went back to Maskat, and Wellsted made 
an excursion eastward to the edge of the great cen- 
tral desert. He never entered it, nor has any one else 
from that side. Two months later he had a wider 
prospect : — 

" From the summit of the Jebel Akhdar I had an 
opportunity during a clear day to obtain an extensive 



I40 ARABIA 

view of the Desert to the southwest of Oman. Vast 
plains of loose drift-sand, across which even the hardy 
Bedouin scarcely dares to venture, spread out as far as 
the eye can reach. Not a hill nor even a change of 
colouring in the plains occurs to break the unvarying 
and desolate appearance of the scene," 

Fever supervened, and Wellsted, as soon as able, 
set out, with a very sick following, for Maskat. The 
way lay through Jabal Akhdar again, and along very 
rugged glens, watered by its northeastward outflows. 
A stream often twenty feet wide was found in Wady 
" Kher " (i.e., Wady Semail), flowing even to the 
sea; and this, or another like it, should be Ptolemy's 
river, drawn from the " Fountains of Omanum." On 
the coast at Sib, Wellsted learned that his chance of 
ever reaching Nejd was the remoter for a new 
Wahabite incursion into North Oman. The revival 
of the Central Arabian power under the Emir Faysal 
had begun, and despite the Egyptians, razzias were 
out again in all quarters. In the coming autumn they 
would sweep down behind Jabal Akhdar, and almost 
to the Indian Sea. The Englishman, however, would 
not abandon hope, and, having been rejoined by 
Whitelock, marched late in February northwestward 
through the long date groves of the Batina coast. At 
Sueik he turned inland, and was soon in the hills 
again, now rising brown and bleak above the green 
wadys. Anarchy and fear of the Wahabis grew as 
the party advanced. The Imam's letters awhile com- 
manded respect; but at Ibri, still some fifty miles 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 141 

distant from the frontier settlement, Bireima, Waha- 
bis themselves were encountered, — men who were 
" in general small, and had no other clothes than a 
cloth round their waist. Their complexion was very 
dark, and they wore their hair long." The reception 
of the party by these zealots was such that return was 
inevitable; and this was effected with some difficulty, 
Wellsted learning from the altered demeanour of the 
villagers along the road the truth of the old travellers' 
maxim, " Return by another path in a doubtful land." 

The glimpse which Wellsted had of the Batina, 
home of rich agriculturists exporting indigo, sugar, 
and dates, astonished him. " I question," says he, " if 
it be not the most populous [coast] in the world." 
After visiting Sohar, he sent up a letter to the 
Wahabi chief in Bireima, and, while waiting a reply 
in Shinas, occupied himself with collecting informa- 
tion about the mountainous region of Ras el-Jabal, 
which ends in Cape Musandam. But as no reply 
ever came (for the Wahabis had already started on 
their raid into southern Oman), Whitelock made his 
way across country to Sharja, and Wellsted took ship 
for the Makran coast and India. 

So ended the first scientific exploration of Oman. 
The high compliment may be paid to Wellsted of 
comparing him in one or two respects with Carsten 
Niebuhr. He did for our knowledge of one rich 
district of Arabia almost as much as the Dane did 
for the other. Like Niebuhr, Wellsted neither trav- 
ersed a large area nor made a journey full of adven- 



142 ARABIA 

ture and danger; but he both explored thoroughly 
the district which he visited, and he collected infor- 
mation about its surroundings. It must not, however, 
be supposed that his powers were in all or even many- 
ways equal to Niebuhr's. He had nothing like the 
same wide and discerning vision, the same judgment 
of men, the same descriptive power. If he was better 
provided with instruments, and had had much longer 
acquaintance with Arabia and Arabs, at the same time 
Haines stated that he was but a poor surveyor, and 
Badger that his knowledge of colloquial Arabic was 
small. These facts Wellsted, ambitious of fame, did 
his best to conceal from his readers. Nor in the pur- 
suit of notoriety was he too scrupulous to give others 
their due. His captain, Haines, condemned him in 
strong terms for forestalling the fame of his col- 
leagues on the " Palinurus," — an accusation which 
the reader can verify if he look, for example, at 
Wellsted' s accounts of the diplomatic transactions 
with the sultans of Kishin and Lahej. For in these, 
although he is known to have played a subordinate 
part, he has omitted all mention of his superior offi- 
cer. Haines's own account of the south coast is far 
better than his lieutenant's; and for the exploration 
of Socotra, and the discovery of antiquities on the 
mainland shore, Cruttenden, Carter, and Hulton were 
entitled to at least half the credit which Wellsted 
secured by selfish and premature publication. 

But for the work done in Oman, even if something 
more than Wellsted allowed be accredited to White- 




Wellsted's Map of Oman (1S38) 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 143 

lock, the former deserves high praise. Both his map 
and his notes have stood the test of time, and are not 
yet superseded. Eloy and Miles have retraced some 
of his footsteps and added to his information, but 
they have not had to subtract from it; and where he 
failed to penetrate, his followers had no better success 
for two generations. Though Bireima was reached 
from the north by Miles in 1876, no one passed to 
south of it, or indeed ever revisited Ibri, Wellsted's 
furthest point towards the Dahira, till 1902; and to 
this day the last object of his ambition, the overland 
passage from Oman to Nejd, has been attained by 
no other explorer. 

We have seen that an earlier object of Wellsted's 
ambition had been the Hadramaut. The curiosity of 
many had been excited by the secrecy of this cen- 
tral southern region. Niebuhr had learned vaguely 
but correctly enough the general character of the 
district, — its partition between desert uplands and 
deep, fertile wadys; its exclusive but highly civilised 
society; the prosperity of its chief settlements, main- 
tained despite the decline of the spice trade; and the 
variance in type and speech between the coastal race 
and the inland folk. The largest town he heard to be 
Doan, but the most powerful to be Shibam. Concern- 
ing the road thither from Yemen, he was told only 
that is passed through no village after leaving Jauf, 
and that a caravan must march for twenty-five days 
from Sana to reach Doan. 



144 ARABIA 

Niebuhr realised and confessed that there was much 
more to know ; but it was long ere any great addition 
was made. Fresnel, in 1838, from inquiries made in 
Jidda, corrected the Dane about Doan, — which is a 
district, not a town, — stated more correctly the 
marches from the chief settlements to the coast, and 
called European attention to the natural wonders of 
Bir Borhut, where some sort of volcanic vent was 
reported. 

Of old, Hadramaut had been the seat of one of 
the four principal peoples of the peninsula known to 
the Greeks, and of the greatest repute for aromatic 
products ; and since it still preserved its ancient name, 
it was hoped that it might preserve other ancient 
things also, and that its exploration would solve 
riddles of ancient Arabian history, from the epoch 
of " Ophir " onwards. But Niebuhr's recommenda- 
tion of the Hadramaut to explorers remained fruit- 
less for three parts of a century, and it was not till 
the " Palinurus " took up the survey of the southwest 
coast, in 1834, that any attempt was made by Euro- 
peans to push inland. We have alluded already to 
the pioneer venture made by Wellsted and Crutten- 
den in April, 1835, into the borderland of Yemen. 
Going up with Bedawin guides of the Wahadi tribe, 
they penetrated about fifty miles due north from the 
coast. Their way lay up a long wady, rich in 
oases and dotted with settlements. Though known 
for Englishmen, and none too faithfully guided, the 
adventurers reached their objective safely. They 



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The First Published Himyaritic Inscriptions 

c 

From the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1837 



AK 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 145 

found Nakab al-Hajar as wonderful as report had 
said. Grey marble walls of fine masonry between 
thirty and forty feet high, square towers guarding 
the gates, a legend in letters eight inches long, and 
an oblong temple exactly orientated and choked with 
ruin of its roof, rewarded their pains. The party re- 
turned to the ship without incident, having had, how- 
ever, to thank chance for their evasion of an ambush 
of Diyabi robbers. 

The inscription of Nakab al-Hajar, together with 
two others ^ found by officers of the " Palinurus " 
in the previous year on rocks at Hisn Gorab near 
Makalla, furnished Europe with its first decisive proof 
that Himyaritic records survived from the great 
days of Arabian civilisation. Niebuhr had heard of 
more than one such text in the hill country, and 
apparently been shown an actual copy at Mokha in 
1764; but, sick as he was then, he took it for cunei- 
form, and left to a later generation the fame of the 
first discovery of a class of inscriptions, now num- 
bered by thousands, and of immense historical value. 
Himyaritic studies have had most important influence 
on our knowledge not only of ancient Arabia, but of 
modern. The present science of no land, except per- 
haps Asia Minor, owes more to explorers inspired by 
curiosity about the past. The officers of the " Pali- 
nurus " were the forerunners of Wrede, Arnaud, 

1 Published first by Carter in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society 
of Bengal for 1834, and repeated in/. R. G. S., 1837. Carless had copied 
a Himyaritic graffito near Wij in 1831, but did not publish it till 1845 
{^Bombay A. S., 1845, p. 271). 



146 ARABIA I 

Halevy. Doughty, Huber, Euting, Glaser, Hirsch, i 

and Bent, names with which is associated nearly all ; 

the romantic element in the history of Arabian 1 
exploration. 

It was not given to \\'"ellsted, however, to follow ■ 
up his discovery. Greatly as he wished to penetrate | 
either to the heart of the Sabcean land behind Yemen ' 
or to that of the incense country in Hadramaut, he 
failed, as we have seen, to pass the barriers set by ; 
nature and man. To all requests for furtherance '. 
inland the chiefs of Makalla and Sheher opposed an I 
obstinate refusal, and Wellsted had to be content with i 
making notes from hearsay. In these he first em- 
phasised the importance of one main wady in the in- 
terior, which he called Hadramaut proper, and of the • 
town of Terim. then the most populous. i 

Singularly fertile and self-sufficing, the settled dis- ; 

tricts of Hadramaut are so situated geographically as 

to hang closely together, and to be isolated as a i 

whole from the rest of the peninsula ; while at the i 

same time they lie within reach of ports which are ^ 

in constant communication with mid-eastern Africa ! 

and India. The main fertile vallev of the region, 

carrymg the drainage of the southeastward slope of j 

the highlands of Southwest Arabia, lies for a long | 

distance (about five hundred miles) almost parallel to \ 

the coast, but screened by a high desert plateau. The 1 

fact that its waters are absorbed in the irrigation of .1 

this long depression leaves the last hundred miles of « 

the main wadv a desert, and removes the oasis tracts 

i 

I 

I 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 147 

from direct contact with the sea. To north stretches 
unbroken the most terrible waste of sand-dunes in 
Arabia (Alikaf), never, to our knowledge, crossed; 
and to east is the firmer but not less waterless 
desert of Mahra. On the west there is passage, it 
seems (for the roads are unexplored), across a nar- 
row steppe to the Yemen hinterland; but that hinter- 
land, become largely desert since the collapse of the 
Sabaean dams, is itself not of ready access from 
Yemen, thanks to the lofty and sterile mountain belt, 
which forms the Red Sea watershed. 

The population of the Wady Hadramaut, therefore, 
and its tributary valleys, has had ample opportunity 
to develop particularism. In more frequent commu- 
nication with Moslem communities outside Arabia 
than within it, its religious spirit is of the exclusive 
orthodox kind, which does not prevail in the other 
southern districts, Yemen and Oman. It claims to 
be the repository- of the true tradition of the Prophet, 
arrogating to itself the title Balad ad-Din, " Land of 
the Faith," and affecting especial reverence for the 
present caliph. The fertility of its lands makes its 
farmers self-sufficient, and jealous with the jealousy 
of men who have much to lose; and while their 
relations with Africa have caused them to have un- 
usual wealth of slaves, their relations with India, 
greatly enhancing their material civilisation, have at 
the same time made them fully aware of the nature 
of European rule, and the danger of conceding en- 
trance to members of a race which condemns slaverv. 



148 ARABIA 

With this civilised but highly exclusive society the 
sheikhs of the coast towns between the forty-sixth 
and fifty-second degrees of longitude are most closely 
connected, and in its interest they long succeeded in 
barring the inland ways not only to Europeans, but 
also to all foreigners whatsoever. At the epoch with 
which we are now concerned their jealousy had just 
been aroused by the cruise of the " Palinurus," and 
yet more by the British occupation of Aden, wherein 
they weije not slow to see the beginning of such kaiir 
encroachment as had overwhelmed India. 

Within ten years of Wellsted's failure, however, 
their vigilance was eluded. Adolph von Wrede, a 
soldier of fortune, of good Bavarian family, who is 
said to have been in the service of King Otho, in 
Greece, and to have resided subsequently in Egypt, 
resolved to try if Wellsted had said rightly that a man 
might enter Hadramaut in Moslem guise. To court 
local favour and to have an obvious motive for the 
journey, Wrede assumed the name and the character 
of a pilgrim to the famous tomb of the saint Hud, 
known to lie in the Hadramaut. He saw Fresnel at 
Jidda, sailed for Aden, and made his way inland 
from Makalla with some fifteen Akuaibere Bedawins 
on June 26, 1843, steering slightly west of north. 
At first he had to follow long valleys sloping sea- 
ward, similar to the Wady Maifat, ascended by 
Wellsted and Cruttenden; and thereafter to proceed 
up an escarpment and across a chill and barren sand- 
stone plateau under Jebel Zahura, whose height he 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 149 

overestimated at eight thousand feet. He found a 
well-marked track supplied with cisterns, but no settle- 
ments. On the ninth day an immense ravine opened 
suddenly before the party, offering a view of many 
settlements, and of date groves extending for miles; 
and, descending by a narrow paved road, Wrede 
found himself in the same Wady Doan whose wealth 
and fertility had been vaunted to Niebuhr eighty 
years before by a native met in Yemen. 

At the largest village, Khoraibe, he was well re- 
ceived by the chief of the Beni Issa, and furthered 
on excursions west and north. In the former direc- 
tion he desired to revisit Wellsted's goal, Nakab 
el-Hajar, and penetrate to Habban; but after discov- 
ering a new Himyaritic inscription in Wady Ubne, 
and reaching the sea, he was turned back, and had 
to make his way again, not without grave peril, to 
Khoraibe. To northward he pushed across the 
plateau to the great Wady Amd, which runs parallel 
to Doan. There he found a sheikh who had been in 
India, spoke English, and possessed Scott's " Napo- 
leon." This enlightened individual made no secret 
of his disbelief in Wrede' s assumed character, but 
did not betray him. Thence the German followed 
the valley to Haura, where he found Wady Doan 
coming into Wady Amd; and turning northward 
over a ridge, he struck into a great half-choked 
wady running east-northeast. Hearing at the town 
of Sawa, chiefly inhabited by collectors of desert salt, 
that the great sands of the Ahkaf (here called Bahr 



150 ARABIA 

as-Safi) lay but a day distant, he induced his Bed- 
awins to take him to their edge. He found them 
raised high above even the plateau level, a vast ex- 
panse of dunes with certain white spots, said by his 
guides to be pits of quicksand which engulfed any 
heavy body. It has been suggested that these were 
half-choked naphtha springs. Undeterred by their 
alarms, Wrede marched towards one of the white 
patches, armed with a plumb-line of sixty fathoms. 

" With the greatest caution I approached the border 
to examine the sand, which I found almost an impal- 
pable powder, and I then threw the plumb-line as far 
as possible; it sank instantly, the velocity diminishing, 
and in five minutes the end of the cord had disappeared 
in the all-devouring tomb." 

After retracing his path to Wady Doan, the pil- 
grim set out at last for Kabr al-Hiid. His tardiness 
in performing this duty possibly accounts for the 
fact that he was never allowed to reach the tomb of 
the saint. Arrived at Sif, where a fair was in prog- 
ress, he was attacked by a mob, and haled before the 
local potentate for an English spy. After a short 
duress, and suffering the loss of most of his notes 
and baggage, he was bidden return straight to Ma- 
kalla, which he reached early in September. 

Captain Haines, of " Palinurus " fame, obtained a 
brief report from Wrede, and communicated it to the 
Royal Geographical Society in 1844. It was enough 
to establish the general character of the fertile Ha- 
dramaut country as being a system of branching val- 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 151 

leys, deeply sunk in a high plateau and debouching 
into one main channel which trends east and by 
south to the sea near Sihut. Wrede had crossed the 
heads of several of its tributary valleys without reach- 
ing the main wady of Hadramaut proper, where lay 
the larger towns reported to Haines and Wellsted, 
Shibam, Saiyun, and Terim; but at Sawa he had 
crossed Wady Rakhiya, which must be considered the 
parent channel, derived from the Yemen plateau. In 
short, his track lay on the whole somewhat to the 
eastward of the true Hadramaut. 

The great Prussian geographer, Karl Ritter, then 
finishing the Arabian volumes of his " Description of 
Asia," welcomed Wrede's report as an immense gain 
to knowledge. But neither a map nor a copy of the 
inscription of Wady Ubne accompanied the report. 
The existence of these, however, as well as of cer- 
tain water-colour sketches and notes, was attested by 
Fresnel, who had talked with the author after his re- 
turn to Cairo; and this learned Arabist, as well as 
Ritter, Murchison, and other authorities, made no 
doubt of Wrede's good faith. But the famous Hum- 
boldt, who met him after his return to Westphalia, 
called in grave question the account of the Bahr as- 
Safi, quoted above, and so prevailed on scientific and 
public opinion that Wrede fell under general suspicion 
of having compiled a sensational report from hearsay ; 
and that although Arnaud had spoken not only of 
knowing him before and after his exploit, but of 
having- talked in Marib with a man of Hadramaut 



152 ARABIA 

who had just come from his native district and seen 
Wrede there. His story passed into the same cate- 
gory as Du Couret's " Mysteres du Desert," — a 
fabulous concoction concerning Marib and the Ha- 
dramaut, put together from various sources, notably 
the narrative of Arnaud, and published in 1859. 

The result was that Wrede published no more, but 
emigrated to Texas, and there is said to have killed 
himself about i860. Ten years later Baron Heinrich 
von Maltzan, who had made the Mecca pilgrimage 
in disguise in i860, and had since occupied himself 
with Arab studies, issued Wrede' s journal in full, 
with map, inscription, notes, and a vindicatory pref- 
ace, but no sketches. The words of the original 
report appeared here and there with a mass of new 
matter concerning Bedawin custom, recent history, 
and personal adventure. Notably the passage con- 
cerning Bahr as-Safi recurred unaltered. Von Malt- 
zan did not tell the world how Wrede' s journal came 
into his hands; merely that, having done so, it was 
published at the earnest request of Dr. Karl Andree, 
the well-known cartographer. The map was re- 
issued in a revised form, in 1872, in Petermann's 
" Mittheilungen." 

Humboldt's attitude notwithstanding, there is no 
real doubt as to the authenticity of either Wrede's 
journey in Hadramaut, or his Journal. To the first 
an even better authority than Arnaud and Haines 
bears witness, namely, Van den Berg, in the mas- 
terly essay on Hadramaut (1886), which he based 



THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 153 

on examination of numerous colonists from that coun- 
try, settled in Java. He states that he himself had 
talked to an Arab of Hanin who was an eye-witness 
of the arrest of this " 'Abd al-Hud," a stranger who 
comported himself like a madman, and was only saved 
from the populace by the intervention of the sheikh. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

J. R. Wellsted, Travels in Arabia (London, 1838); also articles in y. R. 

G. S., 1837, p. 102, 1835, pp. 129, 286. 
V. Maurizi, History of Seyd Said, etc., by Shaik Mansur (London, 1819). 
J. B. Haines, in/. E. G. S., 1839, p. 125, 1845, P- I04- 
W. F. Owen, Coast of Arabia Felix, in Naut. Mag., 1857, p. 180. 
H. J. Carter, in Trans. Bombay As. Soc, 1845, 1847, 1851, pp. 195, 224, 

339- 
A. von Wrede, Reise in Hadhratnut, etc., edited by H. Freiherr v. Maltzan 
(Brunswick, 1870). Cf. article in/. R. G. S., 1844, P- ^°7- 



CHAPTER VII 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 



THAT part of the Arabian peninsula which lies 
nearest to Europe was left by European pio- 
neers to the last. 

It had been long known that beyond the sandy belt 
which bounds the hard Syrian steppe on the south, 
a brave and hardy Bedawin race, the Shammar, held 
a highland region, which Moslem geographers called 
the " Two Mountains," or simply " The Mountain," 
and included in the great division Nejd. Niebuhr had 
mentioned " Shomar " and enumerated four of its 
settlements, but he failed to learn details of it; and 
both Seetzen and Burckhardt, while domiciled in Syria, 
made inquiry, knowing that it had been for ages the 
seat of an independent society which had once been 
idolatrous,^ but later was wont to receive and forward 
the Baghdad and Basra pilgrims on their way to 
Mecca by Queen Zobeide's road. From very early 
times its original capital. Paid, had been regarded as 
the halfway station, where hdjjis might leave heavy 
baggage in security against their return. But Karl 

1 See Caussin de Perceval, Les Arabes avant Vlslamisme, vol. ii. 
p. 605. 



156 ARABIA 

Ritter was probably the first to point out (in 1845) 
that the importance of Jabal Shammar in the his- 
tory of Arabian traffic went back not only to the 
" Times of Ignorance," when poets sang of its noble 
Tai clan and the princely hospitality of its hero, 
Hatim, but to the days of Ptolemy, when caravans, 
taking the roads from Gerra to Petra, and from Gerra 
and Babylonia to the Minsean and Sabsean kingdoms, 
must have met there. Sprenger indeed has located in 
Shammar territory two of Ptolemy's mid-Arabian 
stations, — Aine, which is perhaps Hail itself or 
Faid, and Salma, whose name persists in one of the 
twin mountains, Jabal Selma. 

A century ago information about the actual con- 
dition of Jabal Shammar was far to seek. For about 
two hundred years the weakness of the Ottoman sul- 
tans had been permitting anarchy in all the south- 
eastern part of their empire; and new northward 
migrations from Nejd, led by a part of this same great 
clan of Shammar, had disturbed the whole Syrian 
steppe. The Anaze tribes, themselves of Nejdean 
origin, to whose " nomadising " influence has been 
due the relapse of much fertile Syria to steppe, 
succeeded at last in pushing the invaders across 
Euphrates. But during their conflict the visits both 
of merchants from Syria and of the pilgrims from 
Basra seem to have ceased almost entirely. We read, 
for example, in Abd al-Karim's narrative,^ that when 
he wished to pass from Baghdad to Mecca in 1741, 

1 See Bibliography to chapter i. 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 157 

he was warned not to attempt the cross-Arabian route, 
but to make the long elbow by Aleppo and Damascus ; 
and for corroboration we have only to note the ruin 
into which the cisterns and shelters piously provided 
by Caliph Harun's queen had been long fallen. 

Security increased with the consolidation of the 
Wahabi power, and in 1808 Seetzen, then living in 
Jerusalem, was able to send a Syrian, attached to his 
service, by way of the Hauran and the Wady Sirhan 
to Jauf, the last oasis in Syria or the first in Arabia. 
This man, by name Yusuf al-Maliki, found it in 
Wahabi hands. Jauf, Ptolemy's Dumaetha, a Roman 
outpost, and the Daumet al-Jandal of Moslem geog- 
raphers, had been reported vaguely to Niebuhr as a 
hilly tract of country denominated " Jof es-Sirhan." 
Yusuf now reported that it was a considerable basin 
containing several walled villages, dependent on wells 
and lying near one another. A great square castle, and 
an "obelisk" three times as high as the highest minaret 
attracted his attention; whereof the latter seems to 
have been the ruined tower of Marid. But he stayed 
only a few days, by his own account, before pushing 
southwards with his guides, who brought him to a 
great desert of dunes, called Nafud, where roamed 
white " wild cows," and after three days' further 
march, during which no water was found, to the foot 
of an exceeding high mountain, which seemed to him 
like his own Lebanon. Hence he learned it was ten 
-days' march to Deraiye; but not persevering farther, 
he returned by the way he had come. 



158 ARABIA 

Yusuf's great exaggeration of Jabal Aja, and his 
statement that, having crossed the terrible desert to 
a land of palms and springs, his Bedawins insisted on 
turning back, raise a doubt if indeed he ever went 
beyond Jauf, or, at most, above halfway across the 
desert. The character of the Nafiid, its flora, the 
existence of its " wild cows " (an antelope species, 
Oryx heatrix, rediscovered by later explorers), and 
the towering aspect which Jabal Aja presents from the 
distant desert, were easily learned. Four years later 
Burckhardt questioned the traders and caravaners in 
Damascus, and from their information drew up two 
itineraries to Jauf, one from Basra, the other from the 
south end of the Dead Sea; and he noted the stations 
from Jauf to Jabal Shammar, but baldly, as it might be 
in a pilgrim's way-book. 

Such scant knowledge was not greatly increased by 
the Egyptian invasion of Nejd. The tall Shammar 
tribesmen had not accepted the Wahabi doctrine till 
after 1785, when Sa'iid was free to manifest his terrible 
energy in the north. Both for its religious programme 
of emancipation from elaborate and superstitious cere- 
monies and its political programme of emancipation 
from Turkish dominion, Wahabism was not uncon- 
genial to the noble Arabs of northern Nejd, who 
professed allegiance to the Hanbali school of Islam. 
But neither the spiritual fervour nor the ascetic 
ritual, to which it gave birth among the oasis- 
dwellers of the south, was natural to a pure Bedawin 
race. The Shammar, like their near kinsmen in Asir, 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 159 

seem to have welcomed Wahabism rather for its hos- 
tihty to the Meccan or " Turkish " system than for 
its religiosity, and to have taken Httle part in spreading 
it beyond Nejd. Sa'ud visited the "Jabal," and passed 
beyond it even to Jauf, about 1790, but apparently left 
no governor in any tovvm or village. For there vv^as, 
as yet, no temporal organisation in an empire depend- 
ent for its existence and cohesion on a common 
spiritual conviction. 

During the successive advances of the Egyptians 
the Shammar came to the help neither of them nor 
of the emir in Deraiye ; ^ but not being for Ibrahim 
they were treated as being against him. After the 
fall of Deraiye there seems to have been an Egyptian 
governor and garrison awhile at Hail, but in preca- 
rious isolation, which precluded them from effecting 
there the devastation which had been the sad lot of 
southern Nejd. Soon free again, Jabal Shammar, 
whose proximity Sadlier considered to be a main cause 
of the importance of Aneiza, came under the strong 
hand of a native Shammar sheikh, and remained at 
peace during that intestine anarchy of Nejd, which 
was not ended till the final establishment of Faysal in 
Riad in 1842. The new supreme sheikh, 'Abd-Allah, 
a member of the noble family of Rashid, which has 
since written its name large in the history of Arabia, 
owed his appointment to Faysal, whose succession to 
the emirate of Riad he had originally secured in 

* Burckhardt records that they acted independently of the Wahabis 
in his time ; e. g., they attacked the Syrian hdjj, which had been franked 
by the emir. 



i6o ARABIA 

1834 by murdering the murderer of the Emir TurkI; 
and he sought his confirmation in Egyptian favour. 
But from the moment of his secure estabHshment in 
Hail in 1835 he worked to secure independence of 
both these powers. Accepted lord of the most vigor- 
ous and united Bedawin clan, and during the exile 
of Faysal and the second Egyptian invasion of Nejd 
left in undisturbed possession of a town on the high- 
road of trans-Arabian trade, he had acquired, before 
his overlord's return to Riad, too much prestige and 
wealth to be more than nominally a subject; and the 
fame of the capital of South Nejd was already in 
process of eclipse by that of jabal Shammar. 

In 1842 Faysal was released from his prison at 
Cairo and sent up to Riad to resume his government in 
the Egyptian interest. But three years later the Vice- 
roy of the Nile, who, since the Powers had crushed his 
hopes in Syria, was forming new ones in Arabia, 
seems to have seen fit to send a special envoy to see 
what the worth of Faysal's rival in Nejd might be. 
He chose for the purpose a Swede, George Augustus 
Wallin. This man was to travel in disguise as a 
learned Moslem sheikh, being in fact a distinguished 
Arabist, who ultimately became professor in the Uni- 
versity of Helsingfors. It is usually stated that 
he was to buy horses for the Viceroy; but to that 
end the choice of a highly educated European was 
a singular freak on the part of a potentate who had 
hundreds of native horse-coopers at his beck. Nor 
in the event does Wallin appear to have dealt in 




From a picture in the possession of the University of Helsingfors 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH i6i 

horses, for he kept out of all commerce in Hail, 
and returned by way of Medina and Mecca. The 
report of his experiences on this first journey was 
long delayed. It was not read to the Royal Geograph- 
ical Society till 1852, and when it appeared in print 
in 1854, two years after the traveller's death, it was 
found to give no preliminary explanations. In view 
of all the facts, one can hardly doubt that this distin- 
guished scholar, though he had all the curiosity of 
an explorer who travels for the sake of pure science, 
was in fact commissioned by Mehemet Ali to make 
a report on the rising power of Jabal Shammar. 

Whatever his motive, Wallin was one of the very 
ablest Europeans who has ever set foot in Arabia, 
and qualified for his task as only Seetzen or Burck- 
hardt would have been. One recognises in him, per- 
haps for the first time in the history of Arabian 
discovery, a scientific explorer of the best modern type, 
thoroughly prepared, and determined to leave noth- 
ing for the man who might come after him. His 
assumption of an eastern character seems to have been 
perfect ; but his observation of the scenery and society 
about him was in no way impaired by it ; and the 
minute accuracy of his report, as attested by the com- 
parison of the narratives of later travellers, argues 
that he took most copious notes without let or hin- 
drance, save only in the fanatic company of the Per- 
sian pilgrims to the Holy Cities. One reservation 
must, however, be made: he carried no instruments. 

Wallin left Cairo before the middle of April, and 



i62 ARABIA 

made his way in a couple of months to Maan, the ' 

important pilgrim station which lies to the southeast i 

of the Dead Sea. Thence his road lay over the stones 

I 

and dust of the Hamad till he should strike the sandy i 

depression of Wady Sirhan, by which Yusuf al-Maliki | 
had gone to Jauf a generation before him. He reached 
the Wady at the wells of Weisit, and thence came to 
Jauf in forty hours, forerunning from Maan a future i 
and more notorious traveller, Gifford Palgrave. The ; 
features and society of the oases of el- Jauf (in his i 
orthography Algawf), where he remained about two \ 
months, Wallin described with an elaborate detail j 
which has left very little to be said by any one commg i 
after; but as Jauf is Syrian, rather than Arabian, we : 
will not, like his successors, repeat him, but pass on, I 
calling attention by the way to his guess that the Syr- i 
ian Hamad culminates in the hills north of the oasis, j 
and to his notification of the existence of a twin oasis j 
some thirty miles to northeast, whose principal settle- ] 
ment, Sakaka, is not less populous than the main town j 
of Jauf itself. | 
Wallin set his face southward towards the Nafud ' 
desert at the end of August, and finding water for the . 
last time in the six deep wells of Shakik at the end of i 
a long day's march, noted that this supply is due to I 
an argillaceous seam in the hard stratum which under- 
lies the sand-dunes. The party entered the main desert \ 
on September i, and followed a track which has al- j 
ways been marked by the occurrence of two rocky ,' 
pyramids standing up above the undulating waste of ! 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 163 

sand at about one-third of the way across. It was 
only after eighty-seven hours of marching that WalHn 
reached water again at Jubbe, a circular pan where 
the hard soil, uniform with the main part of the Syrian 
steppe to northward, is again exposed. 

Travelling, as he did, over the dreaded passage in 
summer, with very weak camels and mainly by night, 
Wallin did not note the peculiarities which later trav- 
ellers have observed in this " Nafud." He remarked 
what rich pasture it afforded for part of the year; 
but the vast expanse of dunes of red granular sand, 
heaped upon a hard limestone soil, did not excite 
his curiosity. Nor, while he speaks of " difficult 
ground " necessitating deviations from the direct 
course, whereon the traveller must see he keep " the 
polar star on his left shoulder blade," does he specify 
the nature of it or show any consciousness of those 
great horse-shoe pits, the cause of whose existence 
has puzzled so greatly some of his successors. 

At Jubbe Wallin found a small and mean settle- 
ment, but great concourse of nomad graziers; and in 
the course of a fortnight's sojourn he visited the rocks 
of its mountain, Musliman, which are scored with 
numerous rude drawings and inscriptions in the Kufic 
character. He seems to have believed himself to have 
been descending ever since Jauf, for he says : — 

" Not only has this tract [the northern desert] but the 
whole peninsula of Arabia, in my opinion, a southerly 
or southeasterly decline. ... I regard Syria and its ad- 
jacent desert as the highest part of the peninsula. . . . 



j64 ARABIA 

Wherever I have been in the interior to the east of the 
barrier chain, I never fell in with a valley or a winter 
rill which did not run in a southerly or southeasterly 
direction. The climate seems also to prove the south- 
east decline of Arabia." 

But, nevertheless, Arabia falls not to south but to 
northeast; and if Wallin, who himself quoted the 
confused account, taken by Yakut from Haytham, of 
a great sinuous wady which,, under various names, but 
most often called Rumma, runs from near Medina 
northeastward even to the vicinity of Kufa on Eu- 
phrates, had bethought him to verify this statement by 
questioning the natives of Nejd, he would have an- 
ticipated an important discovery, which is claimed by 
Wetzstein, Doughty, and Huber. We shall see later 
how similar considerations, in default of instruments, 
led Palgrave into similar errors. 

South of the wells of Kena, Wallin found the sand 
give place to disintegrated granite as abruptly as it 
had itself succeeded to the limestone steppe on the 
north; and, now in a land of palm-settlements, he 
saw the isolated grey granite chains of Jabal Aja 
and Jabal Selma rise before him, brushwood clad, 
saline and arid. He reduced the height of the former, 
Yusuf's Lebanon-like mountain, to but a thousand 
feet above the plateau, and estimating its length as a 
chain at only five days' journey stated the fact that it 
has a connection, though not in its own granite, with 
the mountains of Hijaz. Of the twin chains of Jabal 
Shammar he gives us our first and our most correct 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 165 

account, as well as of the methods whereby their 
waters are raised in the plain, and the corn-fields and 
large vegetable gardens of the district are irrigated. 

Hail, now become instead of Faid, or Kafar, the 
chief settlement in Jabal Shammar, Wallin reached in 
about twelve hours from the Nafud limit by passing 
a low col in Jabal Aja. Like all his successors, he was 
impressed at once by the thriving, bustling life of this 
clean and well-built town, its open and thronged mar- 
kets and its general air of security and well-being. 
Though 'Abd-Allah had been but ten years its lord, a 
man might go where he willed in peace on the once 
perilous Jabal, and all the Bedawins, even to Kasim 
on the south, Teima on the west, and the Euphratean 
marches on the east, paid tax to the Shammar sheikh 
and respected his order. Princely hospitality was 
practised daily in his hall, and patriarchal justice done 
in his open council for all North Central Arabia. 
Wallin speaks thus of the founder of the Rashid 
fortunes : — 

" Power and wealth alone did not procure *Abd Allah 
this great authority among the Arabs ; he owed it far 
more to his own great personal qualities, his intrepidity 
and manliness, his strict justice, often inclining to sever- 
ity, his unflinching adherence to his word and promise, 
of a breach of which he was never known to have ren- 
dered himself guilty, and, above all, to his unsurpassed 
hospitality and benevolence towards the poor, of whom, 
it was a well-known thing, none ever went unhelped 
from his door. These virtues, the highest a Bedawy can 
be endowed with, 'Abd Allah was endowed with in a high 
degree." 



i66 ARABIA 

WalHn examined with greater care, and recorded 
with more scientific precision, than any one who has 
followed him, the constituents of the population of 
Jabal Shammar ; and with his wide knowledge of early 
Arab literature and tradition was able in great measure 
to trace their origin. But he failed to make clear the 
important point in which this society differs from that 
of the other chief oasis-lands of Central Arabia, This 
resides in the fact that its main constituent, now settled 
and in part of fcUah life, has not lost the spirit or the 
custom of the Bedawin population from which it 
sprang. To take the ruling family, for example; the 
chiefs of the house of Rashid are not as the chiefs of the 
house of Sa'iid in Riad, rulers of settled communities 
with which they are at one, and surrounding tribes 
of Bedawins, distinct from themselves; but they are 
chiefs, in the first instance, of a great dominant Bed- 
awin tribe, and in the second of the settlements which 
serve that tribe for markets and rallying points. Like 
most of their tribesmen, therefore, the lords of Hail 
spend large part of the year in the open, preferring 
black tents to stone or earthen towers ; and this fact it 
is which, all allowance made for the exceptional vigour 
of the ruling family, has most made for order and 
well-being in Jabal Shammar. Instead of dominant 
oases surrounded by divers distinct tribes of Bedawins, 
who must be reckoned with as a potentially antago- 
nistic, and for geographical reasons very influential, 
element, and can be but indifferently controlled, as is 
the case in southern Nejd, we find the northern oases 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 167 

subject to one tribe, whose nomad members have the 
closest relations and community of interest with the 
settled members. The writ that runs in the Shammar 
town runs equally in the Shammar steppes and deserts; 
and the patriarchal organisation, the nobler code of 
conduct and morals, and the inspiriting tradition of 
an unusually fine nomad race obtain also in the settle- 
ments about which this race moves. In his misappre- 
hension of this feature of the society Wallin was 
followed, as in most things, by Palgrave, and not 
corrected till the Blunts, who had more sympathy with 
nomads, came to Hail a generation later. But in all 
else the first visitor's accuracy has been confessed by 
his successors. 

Concerning his pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca 
Wallin has left no detailed narrative, a fact the more 
to be regretted because not only would so learned an 
Arabist's observation of his Persian companions, of 
the ceremonial at Medina, and even of that at Mecca, 
well known though it be, have been most valuable, but 
the particular track followed by the Mjj in that year 
was the direct one from Hail to Medina, of which we 
have to this day no other description. Wallin states 
that the interval was covered in eighty-five hours' fast 
marching, and that Jabal Aja ceased on the right hand 
after thirty-nine hours, leaving an opening through 
which the plain extended northwest " without inter- 
ruptions of mountains or undulations as far as to 
the coast of the Red Sea ; " thereafter, he remarked, 
a low chain of sand or limestone resumed promi- 



i68 ARABIA 

nence in the " land of Harb and the inferior parts 
of Alhigaz." 

Wallin returned to Cairo, and ere he had given any 
information to Europe about his journey, was back 
again in Arabia. He made his way this time by sea 
to Muweila, on the coast of Midian, already well 
known from Riippell's account (1826) and Moresby's 
survey; and thence, on Feb. 20, 1848, he struck in- 
land through unexplored and unsettled granite moun- 
tains to Tebuk, a very old village on the Syrian 
pilgrim road. It is curious that both during this 
passage and an excursion which he made subsequently 
into the Harrah Mountains Wallin did not recognise 
their recent volcanic character, though he spoke of 
crossing 

" level tracts of a dark stony soil broken here and there 
by conical or pyramidal masses of rock. At the base of 
these masses the ground is thickly strewn with black 
porous stones of peculiar lightness. The mountains 
themselves here consist of red sandstone, . . . but their 
sides and ridges are so covered with these black frag- 
ments that the red colour of the rock beneath can only 
be perceived on a close examination." 

To make his misapprehension clear he added in a 
note : — 

" It is possible that the rock of these hills is ferrugi- 
nous sandstone, the red colour being due to the presence 
of oxide of iron, which becomes a black peroxide after 
having imbibed more oxygen from the atmosphere ; and 
thus small fragments become externally quite black, and. 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 169 

from the action upon their surface, have very much the 
appearance of cinders," — 

which, indeed, they have, for they are the Harrah 
lavas. 

On the 19th of April Wallin reached the frontier 
of the Shammar dominion again at the oasis of 
Teima, which, like the fellow oasis of Kheibar, had 
not been visited by a European, though familiar by 
name to all students of Moslem literature. He found 
the main settlement to stand on a patch of cal- 
careous soil almost surrounded by Nafud, and to be 
mostly irrigated from one great well, famous through- 
out Arabia, the Bir al-Hudaj. Corn and the sweetest 
dates grew there, tended by some hundred families 
of professed Wahabites, in whom Wallin saw, how- 
ever, only Moslems of the strict Hanbali school. 
Though he learned the existence of a large oasis at 
Elah (Ala) three days to the southward, he did not 
hear, or was not curious enough to inquire of el-Hejr, 
the place of the mysterious rock-cut houses of the 
Prophet Saleh (Medayin Salih), which lay on the 
road thither. 

He left Teima after a week's stay, in the company 
of a Bishr nomad, who had guided a horse caravan 
on its way to the Viceroy of Egypt, and next day he 
encountered other men from South Nejd, in charge 
of horses. A negro Egyptian commissioner accom- 
panied them. Joining forces, the parties cut across a 
tongue of the Nafud to the granitic uplands, and slept, 
on May 2, at Kafar, and on the following night in 



lyo ARABIA 

Hail. Wallin found the Emir *Abd-Allah ibn Rashid 
newly gathered to his fathers, and his sons Talal and 
Mata'ab reigning jointly in his stead under the tute- 
lage of their warlike uncle, 'Ubayd. The Swede stayed 
a month this time, but we hear nothing of his doings. 
Because of disturbances in Faysal's country and other 
reasons, on which he did not enlarge, he abandoned 
all idea of going south or east, and joined, on June 7, 
a small party of five tribesmen bound for Meshed AH 
in quest of rice. The direct track, to west of that 
followed by the Persian pilgrims, was chosen as less 
exposed to raids. It leads at first over a corner of the 
Nafiid, but after two days reaches the harder calcare- 
ous soil, where water lies in the clefts even in sum- 
mer. On the fourth day a ridge is surmounted, which 
Wallin calls Dahana, and identifies with a swell in 
the Nafiid seen by him three years earlier, near Jauf, 
about eighty miles distant. He believed it to be 
continued by the low coastal range of the Persian 
Gulf even to Ras el-Kheima. From its farther side 
Wallin's guides " took the pole-star between their 
eyebrows " and struck straight over featureless gravel 
ridges till, always descending, they sighted the gilt 
cupola of Ali's tomb on June 15th. 

From Meshed AH Wallin passed to Baghdad, and 
came no more to Arabia, but died in Finland, after 
four years. The narrative of his second journey, 
written in English, was communicated to the Royal 
Geographical Society in 1850; and, so far as we know, 
he left no other record except the more elaborate paper 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 171 

on his first journey, which was sent to the same Society 
in the year of his death. One might spare something 
of his successors' narratives to have more of Wallin's. 
He was the last of the original pioneers who, since 
Niebuhr, had been opening up Arabia, the last to 
force the barriers of a great unexplored region of the 
first importance. Since Wallin's time every European 
traveller who has made any considerable journey in 
the interior of the peninsula has touched or crossed, 
if he have not followed, the track of a predecessor. 
There were, of course, great areas left to be explored 
in the fifty years that have since elapsed ; and there 
are great areas dark at this day; but no habitable 
region remained any longer virgin. Only the vast 
Southern Desert hid its mysteries, as it hides them 
still. 

The progress of Arabian exploration up to this mo- 
ment may be seen by a glance at the revised map pub- 
lished by the great Prussian geographer, Karl Ritter, 
in 1852. In no part of the continent, whose science he 
made his own, did Ritter take a more personal interest 
than in its southwestern peninsula. It was to him what 
the Anatolian peninsula was to be to his worthy succes- 
sor, Heinrich Kiepert, the man who has finished Ritter's 
work of laying the foundation of the present German 
interest in nearer Asia. The Arabian volumes of 
Ritter's great descriptive work had already appeared 
in 1846 and 1847, after the first narratives of Wrede 
and Arnaud had come to hand, but before anythins: 



172 ARABIA 

was known of Wallin. Those volumes stated the sum 
of the geographical evidence on Arabia, available up to 
1845. Using Ptolemy and the Moslem geographers 
for a basis, Ritter checked their statements by the 
reports and narratives of all the travellers whom we 
have mentioned. 

One may note that he has already improved on 
Jomard's statement of Arabian geography, not only 
in respect of the southern districts, explored within 
the past ten years, but even in that of the western and 
central districts, on which there was no new evidence. 
He no longer credits the superficial draining of Ared 
by the Wady Aftan to the Gulf of Bahrein. Attach- 
ing greater weight to Sadlier's observations than his 
French predecessor had done, he held that there was 
a continuous barrier of highland to the east of the 
Nejdean wadys, and that if Aftan existed at all 
its waters could only, like those of Hanifa, from 
which it was distinct, reach the Bay of Bahrein by 
underground channels. At the same time he clung 
to the theory of Chedufau and Tamisier that the 
Asir drainage, after being collected in the Bahr 
Saluhe, is carried on northeastward, and possibly 
into the Gulf at last, after making the fertility 
of the southernmost districts of Nejd, Aflaj, and 
Harik. 

Thanks to the " Palinurus," the coastal outline of 
Arabia was now known, except for one stretch of 
about three hundred and fifty miles on the southeast; 
and, relatively to the coast, inland points up to a cer- 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 173 

tain distance could be more correctly placed. Ritter 
was able to adjust Jomard's chart of Asir, knowing 
that Taif really lay where earlier geographers had 
placed it, well to south of the Meccan parallel, and to 
introduce more detail into the Frenchman's summary 
delineation of the mountain system. But of the im- 
portant problems of slope and drainage to north of 
the road from Mecca to Riad, — that is, in all the 
northern half of Arabia, — Ritter was of course in 
ignorance still ; nor had he any clearer idea than his 
predecessors of the semi-volcanic nature of the moun- 
tain system of the Red Sea littoral, or its relation to 
the internal chains, such as those of Jabal Shammar. 
For certain parts of Nejd he had as yet but mediaeval 
Moslem evidence; and accordingly, while he could 
claim to be better informed on the character of the 
northern oases on all hands of the Nafijd than any 
geographer before him, he still imagined the oasis of 
Jauf to extend much farther south than indeed it does. 
He narrowed the Nafiid to an inconsiderable belt, and 
was obliged to scatter names on his map to northeast 
and east of Jabal Shammar on the old plan of as- 
suming equidistance between the stations of pilgrim 
itineraries. 

In short, for about one-third of the peninsula, that 
part lying north of latitude 25°, Ritter's knowledge 
was much inferior to ours at the present day. But 
for the remainder of Arabia the scientific advance 
which has been made by nearly sixty years of research 
since his day is not so considerable; and the fact that 



174 ARABIA 

a descriptive geography, written in 1845, should still 
be a first-rate authority for near a million square 
miles of the earth in 1904, illustrates equally the 
thoroughness of Ritter's work and the inaccessibility 
of Arabia to modern explorers. 



THE UNKNOWN NORTH 175 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Seetzen, Beitrdge zur Geographic Arabiens in Von Zach's Monatl. Corresp., 

1808, xviii. pp. 358, 383. 
Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, Appendix vi. 
G. A. Wallin in/. R. G. S., xx. p. 293, xxiv. p. 115. 
K. Ritter, Erdkunde von Asiett, Pts. xii., xiii. (Berlin, 1846, 1847). 



PART II. THE SUCCESSORS 



CHAPTER VIII 

WESTERN BORDERLANDS 

WITH the middle of the nineteenth century 
begins what may be called the second gener- 
ation of Arabian explorers. The men, whose mis- 
sion was to revise, may be considered best from the 
standpoint not of their time, but of our own. Their 
work will be more intelligible if related no longer to 
contemporary ignorance but to present science. 

The western border of the Arabian Peninsula pre- 
sents everywhere the same general character. A low 
strip of varying dimension, but nowhere above two 
days' march in width, makes the shore. This Tehama 
is a comparatively recent addition to the main mass 
of Arabia, having been partly washed down from the 
central plateau, partly built out in coralline forma- 
tions into the warm Red Sea.^ Behind this the con- 
tinental mass presents to seaward the aspect of a 
continuous range of varying elevation, with buttresses 

1 There is a good description of the coast-line from the land side in 
J. F. Keane's Hijaz, p. 98. 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 177 

thrown forward to west. The seeming mountain sys- 
tem, however, is in reahty the steeply tilted edge of a 
plateau, which, on the whole, falls away very gradu- 
ally eastward or northward of east. This plateau is 
Central Arabia. Its short but steep seaward slope, 
with the recent lowlands at the foot, is the Western 
Borderland. 

The wadys of the latter, therefore, are not main 
drainage channels of the peninsula, but have short 
courses, which in no case start above a hundred and 
fifty miles inland, as the crow flies; but since they 
carry almost all the precipitated vapours, which come 
from the west, down abrupt inclines of friable compo- 
sition in a land subject to great and rapid variations 
of temperature, they have carved very deeply this face 
of Arabia, more especially in the south, where the 
monsoons swell the volume of their waters. Hence 
the mountainous appearance of Yemen, and in a less 
degree of Asir, as travellers see these lands on their 
way inland from the Red Sea. In Hijaz, with the 
failure of the monsoons, the plateau presents a 
smoother seaward face; but north of the twenty- 
sixth parallel a new geological element appears in 
the scenery. There has been an intrusion of ancient 
plutonic rocks along the westward face for a long dis- 
tance ; and its action has imparted a more truly moun- 
tainous character to the northwestern littoral than to 
any other part of the Red Sea shore. 

For our knowledge of this wild granitic region, 
in part the ancient " Midian," and only by a faulty 



178 ARABIA 

use included under the term Hijaz, we have to thank 
in great measure the famous Richard Francis Burton. 
There is no record of a European having landed to 
explore Midian before 1826/ when the African trav- 
eller, Edward Riippell, who had been in Sinai four 
years before, put in at its principal settlement, Mu- 
weila, and thence made his' way northward along the 
beach, following the Egyptian pilgrim road towards 
Akaba. He recognised the plutonic character of the 
higher peaks, which here closely approach the sea; 
and both at Wady Deriam, a few miles from Muweila, 
and again at Mugair, north of the bay of Ain Une, 
he came upon remarkable traces of early habitation. 
He was followed, in 183 1, by the surveying ship " Pal- 
inurus," under Moresby, with whom sailed Wellsted, 
afterwards the explorer of Oman. The result of their 
labours was a hydrographical survey of the coasts. 
From Wellsted's account, given in the second volume 
of his " Travels," it appears that, in Midian at least, 
no member of this surveying party ventured far in- 
land; and it was not till Wallin chose the track from 
Muweila to Tebuk, in 1848, as a short cut to Nejd, 
that geographers obtained any certain information in 
regard to the country behind the huge granitic hills, 
which rise about a day's journey from the shore. 
Wallin found these to form a coastal chain distinct 
from the plateau, whose face stands up abruptly behind 
them as a continuous wall, connecting Jabal Shera far 

1 Eyles Irwin coasted up to the mouth of the Akaba Gulf in 1777, and 
noted prominent features ; e. g., the twin-peaked mountain behind Mu- 
weila, which he called " Bullock Horns." 




/LUt^i-Li 



/jt..c^7.jLu>-'r\^ 



Richard Burton 
From a sketch in the possession of the Royal Geographical Society 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 179 

to north with the Hijaz highlands to south. He passed 
rapidly through the first chain by the Wady Sadr, a 
principal member of the series of important sand-bot- 
tomed fiumaras, which he remarked descending to 
the coast in a general southwesterly direction ; and he 
climbed the eastern wall behind Jabal Harb, to find 
himself on the great upland Hisma plain, which is the 
outermost threshold of Nejd. 

All that he saw was reseen by Burton thirty years 
later. That famous adventurer, now growing old in 
his consulate at Trieste, had been led some years 
before to credit the existence of precious deposits in 
the Midianite rocks by the chance statement of an 
Egyptian hajji, who had followed the overland road 
to the Holy Cities. Comparing this information with 
Riippell's report of ruined towns in the same region, 
Burton convinced himself that traces of ancient min- 
ing centres and workings must still exist, which 
would serve as guides to ore. It was not, however, 
till early in 1877 that either he had the leisure or the 
Egyptian government, to whom he had imparted his 
evidence, showed the will to investigate the matter on 
the spot. Put in command of a small party in that 
year, he was directed to proceed to Muweila, and thence 
make a flying reconnaissance up Riippell's route; and 
in the event he diverged from the latter only to ascend 
the Wady Deriam and investigate the coastal range at 
closer quarters. The report which he rendered con- 
cerning the traces of ancient workings in that wady and 
at Mugair Shuaib, and of the ruins at the latter spot 



i8o ARABIA 

(where the " Jihan Niima " states there were " tablets 
written with kings' names"), and his samples of 
ore. determined the Egyptian administration to make 
a wider survey; and in the latter part of the same 
year Burton returned to ]\Iuweila with ampler re- 
sources and a much larger following. 

To summarise his results : — he explored first all 
that lies north of Muweila, below the wall of the 
plateau, as far as a point halfway up the Gulf of Akaba. 
Here the coastal range runs down at last to the sea, 
falling sheer in Mt. Taibism, and closes the littoral 
region which Arabs know as Ard IMadyan, or the Land 
of Midian. This region is that which both Riippell and 
Burton himself had seen before, and the first had 
mapped with an accuracy confessed by his successor. 
It presents no peculiarity. The actual littoral is nearly 
all alluvial product of the freshets which come down 
from the Hisma basin, laying sinuous ruin of the 
plateau sandstones between the granite masses of 
the coastal chain. The valleys, of which that called 
Deriam, and higher up Sadr, is the chief, produce 
only desert vegetation between the bare hills. There 
is no permanent settlement of man between Muweila 
and ]\Iakhna ; but the hajj road, made in the sixteenth 
century, is provided with a succession of wells. The 
nomad inhabitants of the Ogba tribe claim patrimony 
in ]\Iuweila. which is protected, despite their tribal 
decay, by the inviolable Bedawin law of property ; but 
they can make little head against the intrusive Hu- 
weitat of the higher Hisma. 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS i8i 

All this district was mapped by Burton's Egyptian 
officers; and their chart, though more of a sketch 
than a survey, remains the best that we possess for 
any inland part of Arabia, except the neighbourhood 
of Aden. That done, the party was led back to 
Muweila to prepare to invade the districts of South 
Midian, for which the Arabs have no common name. 
Burton first struck inland up the Wady Sur, keep- 
ing south of Wallin's track, and passing through 
the coastal chain (he called it, on Indian analogy, 
" Ghats''), ascended to the inner plateau, whose brink 
is on an average some two thousand feet lower than 
the highest granite peaks to west. There he saw be- 
fore him the vast ruddy basin of the Hisma, bounded 
on the east by the long swell of recent eruptive na- 
ture known as the Shefa or Aueirid Harrah, on 
which Doughty was even then wandering. These 
lava masses, reaching to seven thousand five hundred 
feet, form the culminating point of the plateau in 
this region; but the true water-parting lies a little 
farther east; for both the Harrah and Hisma waters 
have been found to drain to the Western Sea. 

Burton, though tempted by ruins in Hisma, did 
not persevere on his inland course, not caring to risk 
trouble with the Maze Bedawins in an enterprise out- 
side his proper commission ; and to the great relief 
of his Egyptians, he descended again to the western 
valley, and made his way southward under the wall 
through a series of sandy upland basins, finding many 
traces of ancient settlement and workings. In the end 



i82 ARABIA 

he explored both flanks of the coastal range as far 
south as Wady Hamd, the true north boundary of 
Hijaz, which interrupts the " Ghats " before their 
final culmination in Jabal Radwa, behind Yambo, 
The importance of this great wady, which comes 
down from the innermost Harrahs, and drains all the 
plateau edge from Medayin Salih to a point far south 
of Medina, was learned then by Burton ; but the pre- 
cise locality of its head-waters and the geography of 
its tributaries were left for Doughty to determine. 
The Egyptian exploration ended with an ascent of 
the great granite mountain behind Muweila, Jabal 
Shar, the ancient Hippos, which was found to have 
an elevation lower by some two thousand five hun- 
dred feet than that with which it had long been 
credited. 

As a prospector for gold Burton failed. Neither 
his samples of ore nor his report convinced experts; 
and no more has been heard of the Eldorado of 
Midian. But it is to his honour that he did not 
lose sight of less lucrative interests. The long paper 
which he communicated to the Royal Geographical 
Society after his return constitutes our best authority 
for all Midian, and our latest; for no European ex- 
plorer has reported subsequently on any inland part 
of it, — not even Julius Euting, who states that he 
crossed a corner in 1884 in his flight to el-Wij 
from the consequences of having shed Jeheina blood 
near el-Ala. There is in all probability little more 
to know of Midian. When a party as well equipped 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 183 

as Burton's, led by so learned and capable an ob- 
server, has quartered a narrow district, with full 
leisure and opportunity for survey, that district may 
be held explored. Burton did not indeed examine 
the granite mountains group by group; and he left 
contours (especially in the south country) very vague 
on his chart; but in view of the uniformity of local 
conditions which prevails all over Arabia, one can be 
sure that no important geographical secret lurks un- 
solved in Midian. 

South of the Wady Hamd, the limit of Egyptian 
rule at that epoch, this good fortune deserts us. The 
nearer the Holy Cities, the less chance of effective sur- 
vey. Nevertheless, we have better knowledge, both of 
these cities themselves, and of the northern Hijaz in 
general, than Ritter, for example, could show in 1852. 
It would be too much to say that the hydrography 
of the whole region is now known accurately, for 
our present conception of it rests on hearsay rather 
than actual exploration by European surveyors. But 
there is no practical doubt that the information con- 
cerning it, gathered from natives by Charles Doughty 
in 1877, is substantially correct. Burton said ^ of the 
Wady Hamd (or Hamz) that it was not as other 
wadys of the littoral, a short torrent bed, but a 
definite opening in the highlands, which led inland 
for fifteen days' march, whereof the first six brought 
a traveller to el-Ala, within a day of He jr. Doughty, 
of whom we shall speak more fully anon, came down 

1 Ste Land 0/ Midian,^. 219. 



i84 ARABIA 

from the north to Hejr itself, — that is, Medayin Salih, 
the famous place of carved rocks of the Beni Thamud, 
— and there learned that the freshet bed, which de- 
scended from its little oasis, " goes out in the great 
Hejaz wady, el-Humth," called, where it forks north 
below el-Ala, the Wady Jisl. This north fork, he 
was told, collects from both sides of the Aueirid 
Harrah, and falling into the great valley of "Humth" 
(Hamd), a wady so great as to be compared by 
Arabs to er-Rumma itself, is prolonged to the Red 
Sea between Wij and Yambo. A year later Doughty 
was a degree farther south, and found that the waters 
which rise in the north, west, and south flanks of the 
Harrah of Kheibar also flow to Wady " Humth," 
joining a great south fork which comes down, under 
the name Wady Kora, from Medina, passing between 
Mt. Ohod and the city, and indeed from much farther 
south, — even from the Mecca country. The whole 
course of the longest member of this system he re- 
ported to be not less than ten degrees. 

It is unfortunate for us that no European, since 
Varthema, has informed us concerning the Syrian 
pilgrim's road from el-Ala to Medina; for it seems 
to run wholly in this hollow land of Wady Kora. 
Nor again concerning the direct continuation of that 
road through the territory of the Beni Amr towards 
Mecca, which must ascend to the head of the whole 
Hamd system before crossing the Harrah ridge to a 
tributary valley of Wady Fatima. But comparison of 
Burckhardt's and Burton's notes leaves no reasonable 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 185 

doubt that the high ground of the northern Hijaz is 
indeed drained to the Red Sea, exactly as Doughty 
says, by a system of wadys which collect over the 
whole rim of the plateau between the twenty-seventh 
and the twenty-second parallels and discharge into 
Wady Hamd. 

■I For confirmation of this hydrography, and for all 
serious addition to our knowledge of North Hijaz 
since Burckhardt's day, we have to thank an earlier 
and more famous adventure of Burton's, — over- 
famous, perhaps, if its purpose and actual perform- 
ance be rightly apprehended. To do the great 
traveller justice, he did not undertake his pilgrimage 
to Medina and Mecca in 1854 in order to make a 
sensation, or because he shared popular ignorance as 
to the novelty and utility of the feat. He knew per- 
fectly well that 'AH Bey and Burckhardt had left him 
little or nothing to report on the Holy Cities, and 
that merely to pass rapidly and in disguise among 
the hajjis from Yambo to Jidda, by way of Medina 
and Mecca, was no longer worth the while of a man 
of his scientific pretension. But Burton went to Mecca 
for exactly the same reason that had influenced the 
best of his predecessors, Seetzen and Burckhardt. 
Having long desired to penetrate, and if possible to 
cross, the heart of southern Arabia, and thereafter 
to travel in other Moslem lands of Asia and Africa, 
he sought to win at once the name and notoriety of a 
hajji. The caravaners of the Hijaz, however, reported 
that the direct passage through the southern deserts 



i86 ARABIA 

to Maskat, described in the " Jihan Numa," was now 
never attempted, but held impracticable even by Bed- 
awins. And more than one event during his pil- 
grimage probably convinced Burton that his disguise 
was not so impenetrable that it would serve him in 
Nejd, where the natives are more jealous of European 
intrusion. In the end he had to some extent to cover 
a failure; but the vivid style and descriptive power 
of his narrative attracted an audience, to which 
Burckhardt's sober journal had remained unknown, 
and so greatly dominated popular fancy, that at this 
day those who know that any European has tried to 
reach Mecca for the most part believe that Burton 
alone succeeded.^ 

Nevertheless Burton's pilgrimage was not alto- 
gether without geographical result. Though he had 
nothing informing to tell of the road from Yambo 

1 The list of European visitors to Mecca is in reality a fairly long one. 
We can name Italians, Varthema and Finati ; Germans, Wild, Seetzen, 
and Von Maltzan ; Englishmen, Pitts, Burton, Keane ; a Swiss, Burck- 
hardt; a Spaniard, Badia; a Swede, Wallin; a Dutchman, Hurgronje ; 
a Frenchman, Courtellemont. Huber was brought to the gates in 1884, 
but did not enter. Besides these we know of many renegades, and suspect 
more. Niebuhr heard of a French surgeon and two Englishmen ; Bur- 
ton quotes an unnamed pilgrim ; Doughty heard of more than one Frank, 
and himself met an Italian, calling himself Ferrari, who was on his way 
to Mecca with the Persian ^J^'; Pitts found an Irishman in the town; 
Maltzan says that Leon Roches, French consul in Tunis, had made the 
pilgrimage, as had also an English sailor. I do not mention Levantine 
Greeks. Many other European renegades in the Egyptian service, be- 
sides Finati, must have been in Mecca; but the French and Italian 
officers, who had not forsworn Christianity, were probably restrained by 
superior order. Mehemet Ali, because his own devotion to Islam was 
suspect, seems to have been as careful as his son was at Medina not to 
give occasion to the fanatics. Varthema, Wild, Pitts, Seetzen, Burck- 
hardt, Wallin, Burton, and Keane visited Medina also. Sadlier, it will 
be remembered, saw the place from without. 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 187 , 

to Medina, which *Ali Bey, Burckhardt, and Sadlier | 
had not told before him, it is useful to have his 
report on Medina itself, which had increased greatly 
in size and importance in the five and thirty years j 
that had elapsed since the last European visit. And j 
on some details of the places of interest and resort j 
in its immediate neighbourhood Burton was able to 
correct Burckhardt, who had been in too feeble 
health to go far outside the town. But concerning 
the great mosque and the social life of the place, he 
professed to add hardly more to his predecessor's ac- 
count than subsequently in Mecca. Since his day 
Medina has been seen only by J. F. Keane, in 1878. 
Its growth and embellishment seem to have continued. 
Going forward with the hajj, Burton was fortunate 
enough to be conducted over the easternmost of the 
four possible Meccan roads.^ Burckhardt had fol- 
lowed and described the well-trodden coastal track, 
Darb as-Sultani. The next path to east of this, 
Tarik al-Ghabir, leading through the hill-country of 
the Beni Sub, is of little importance. The third, 
already mentioned, leading directly up Wady Kora, 
would have taught Burton most about Hijaz hydrog- 
raphy, in regard to which he had observed already 
that the Medina and Mt. Ohod drainage flowed 
towards el-Wij ; but if he was not to take that 
track, it was well that he followed the fourth route 
by the fringe of Nejd, the Darb ash-Sharki, which is 

1 Three, according to Snouck Hurgronje, who probably omits Burton's 
No. 2 as a mere mountain path. He says the Harb raid them all. See 
also F. Wiistenfeld, Die von Medina auslatifenden Hauptstrasse. 



i88 ARABIA 

jpart of Queen Zobeide's road from Baghdad to Mecca, 
but now seldom used for fear of the restless Beni 
Harb. This path led him over two of the lava dis- 
tricts (harrah), which are the most important feature 
of the Hijaz inland frontier ; and he was able to note 
that even so far east the drainage was still directed 
to westward. He was, in fact, crossing, one after 
another, the heads of the eastern Humaras of the 
Hamd system a little below their sources in the small 
circular pans among the low ridges, which form the 
summit of the long eastward slope of Arabia. After 
falling in with the Persian pilgrims' road at Sufeine, 
Burton's caravan ascended the main harrah, and came 
painfully over the black basalts to a tributary of Wady 
Fatima, and so by Arafat to Mecca, having marched 
some two hundred and fifty miles. 

In his description of the capital of Islam, Burton 
has done little more than (in his own words) "pay 
homage to the memory of the accurate Burckhardt;" 
iand as for the Great Mosque, he was content to repro- 
duce the plan of 'Ali Bey. This part of his narrative 
was for popular, rather than scientific, consumption; 
and we need only note its express confirmation of the 
general correctness not only of his more recent prede- 
cessors, but of Varthema. To say so is to imply no 
slur on Burton. In a place already so well described 
as Mecca there was nothing for him to discover, and 
nothing for his successors, Von Maltzan and Keane, 
who likewise saw it only during the brief sojourn 
of the pilgrims. 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 189 

The only thing still worth doing from the scien- 
tific point of view was done by the learned Dutch 
Arabist, J. Snouck Hiirgronje, thirty years after 
Burton's pilgrimage. Landing at Jidda in the au- 
tumn of 1885, Hurgronje spent five months on the 
coast ere going up to Mecca in the character of a 
learned physician. In the course of other five months 
spent in the Holy City he studied society thoroughly 
during the long interval between the departure and 
arrival of the pilgrim caravans; and it appears he 
might have prolonged his stay indefinitely but for 
the unfriendly action of the French vice-consul in 
Jidda, who, for reasons to which we shall allude 
later in speaking of the quest of the Teima Stone, 
informed the Ottoman authorities and procured his 
expulsion before he could proceed to Medina. Hur- 
gronje is the only European, except perhaps Burck- 
hardt, who has seen the life of the oldest city in 
Arabia under normal conditions ; and this fact, added 
to his command of Arabic and profound acquaintance 
with native authorities upon the history of the Hijaz, 
makes his book on Mecca of especial interest. He 
gives an elaborate description of the town, bearing 
witness to Burckhardt's accuracy. Little seems to 
have changed since the Switzer's day except the level 
of the residential part of the town, which is slowly 
rising round the great mosque and the holy houses, 
even as levels rose round temple enclosures on Egyp- 
tian sites. The result is to leave the Ka'bah in a 
deep hollow, two to three metres below the streets. 



I90 ARABIA 

which receives all flood-waters. By far the most 
valuable part of Hurgronje's book, however, beside 
the historical half of it, is that devoted to Meccan 
society, — its street-markets for slaves ; its holy places 
and their guardians; its servile and freedman ele- 
ments; its houses, festivals, and guilds; its vices of 
turbulence, bigotry, and lust; and its virtues of easy 
hospitality and humanity. Hurgronje's is as minute 
a study of Arab urban life as could be made from 
the purely European point of view. It lacks only 
some of that sympathy which perhaps the Jewish 
blood in Palgrave enabled him to feel for society in 
Hail and Riad, and the intimacy that resulted from 
Doughty's complete abandonment of himself to his 
surroundings. 

There have been other Europeans in inland Hijaz 
since Burton, but they have followed well known 
tracks. Taif has been revisited twice since it lapsed 
again to the Sharif's hands,^ first by JameS Hamilton 
and an unnamed companion in 1854, and secondly by 
Doughty in 1879. Neither traveller has fully echoed 
the rapture of the Meccans over this " bit of Syrian 
earth ; " but the latter attests its high elevation and 
cool air. It lies just at the crown of the main 
Arabian slopes; for the flood-waters run northwest- 
ward from it to the Red Sea, and northeastward to 
the Wady er-Rumma, which falls to the Persian Gulf. 
The travellers in question avoided Mecca. Hamilton 

1 It should be said that W. Schimper, the botanist, had been there in 
1836, twenty years after Burckhardt, but before the Egyptian evacuation. 















.'^^^^^H 
"^^^^1 







J. Snouck Huigronje 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 191 

kept to the north of it in going up, skirting Arafat (a^ 
Doughty also did on his way down), and returned 
by a shorter cut to south. J. F. Keane went from 
Mecca to Medina in 1878 by Burckhardt's road, and 
returned by the same. Huber, on his way from 
Kasim, in 1884, was haled to the gates of Mecca 
for a camel-thief, but despatched hastily by the Sharif 
under escort to Jidda. 

From the latitude of Taif to the sixteenth parallel, 
a span of five degrees, the fringe of the plateau, 
both lowland and upland, remains obscure. The 
southern Hijaz, Asir, and the highland provinces of 
North Yemen have not been visited since Jomard's 
day. In the southern Tehama the modern traveller 
has only to mark the changes that time has brought 
about since Niebuhr, — how the decline of the coffee 
trade, in the face of foreign competition, is being fol- 
lowed by the decline of Beit el-Fakih and Zebid; and 
how, reinforced by the commercial rise of Aden, it 
has wrought the utter ruin of Mokha.^ Upon the 
rest of Yemen, however, — namely, the highland belt 
from Aden to a point some fifty miles north of the 
latitude of Sana, and the upper levels of the eastern 
plateau, — explorers have shed much fresh light in 
the past half-century. 

Two momentous political events occurred to modify 

1 Huber noted in Jidda, in 1884, that between 1879 and 1883 Java 
had replaced the Yemen as the principal purveyor of coffee for Hijaz. 
The ^15,750 worth of coffee produced in 1883 by Yemen barely sufificed 
for her own consumption (Huber's Jotintal, p. 755). 



192 ARABIA 

the conditions of European exploration in Yemen after 
the date at which we last treated of it; and on the 
whole they modified them for the better. The first, the 
occupation of Aden by Great Britain, effected finally 
in 1839, and followed by the gradual extension of 
British influence, not only eastward along the southern 
littoral, but northward of Lahej to the foot-hills of 
Jabal Sabor and to Katabe, might have had more 
rapid and farther reaching consequences had it been 
the work of a power more studious to promote the 
general interests of science by political action. There 
was much truth in the complaint made in 1889 by 
the German botanist and explorer, Schweinfurth, 
that the British authorities in Aden had done almost 
nothing in fifty years to dispel the darkness which 
brooded over southern Arabia. Their policy, how- 
ever, has been more liberal of late. When Aden 
was occupied at the first it was without thought of 
the land behind it. The new British post was to 
be an eastern Gibraltar, cut off from Arabia, — just 
a coaling station for the Indian trafific, having rela- 
tions with the sea only. So far did the East India 
Company carry its irresponsibility for the hinterland, 
that a state of things ensued there that awoke un- 
pleasant memories of the inglorious history of the 
last European post in Arabia, Portuguese Maskat. 
The native ruler of Lahej, not a day's march from 
Aden, despite Captain Haines' action in 1839, still 
insulted the British flag, promising to drive the in- 
fidels again into the sea; and it was not for some 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 193 

years that measures were taken to humble him, and 
render even the sea safe. Meanwhile contempt and 
suspicion of the English spread over southern Yemen, 
as Arnaud learned at Marib in 1843. 

Aden, therefore, which might have supplied an in- 
valuable base for inland exploration, remained prac- 
tically without influence in the matter for about a 
generation, except in so far as concerned its immedi- 
ate vicinity, the district of Lahej, which had been 
visited in 1835 by a party from the "Palinurus;" 
and it was not till the second momentous political 
change took place in Yemen that science profited by 
the British invasion. This was the Ottoman re-con- 
quest, consummated by Mukhtar's victories in 1872. 
The effect of this change was twofold. On the one 
hand there was an end at last to the long anarchy 
which the decadence of the imams of Sana had pro- 
moted; and would-be explorers felt at last assured of 
the dominion of a power whose relations with Europe 
were too intimate for it to refuse them protection. 
On the other hand, hatred of the new yoke disposed 
the Yemenites to look favourably on Europeans, and 
especially on the power in Aden, as possible saviours. 
Accordingly, since that date the exploration of Yemen, 
which had been interrupted for about thirty years (ex- 
cept for Stern's missionary journey in semi-disguise to 
Sana in 1856), has once more attracted Europeans. 
A few of these, being either in the Ottoman service, 
like Charles Millingen, or enjoying Ottoman favour 
through their Egyptian relations, like Deflers, Schwein- 

13 



194 ARABIA 

furth, and Hermann Burckhardt, have ignored Aden; 
but the majority have used this base for collecting 
equipment, for gleaning preliminary information, and 
for forming relations with Yemenite traders and cara- 
vaners; and if they have not always succeeded in 
entering Ottoman territory directly from it, have all 
tried to do so. Nor have they been all Britons, like 
Haig or Harris, or Keith Falconer. An Italian, Man- 
zoni, a Frenchman, Halevy, an Austrian, Glaser, an 
American, Zwemer, are also of the number. 

The highland belt had been seen, it will be remem- 
bered, by Niebuhr and others, as far south as the 
great high-road from Mokha to Sana; while Botta 
had ascended Mt. Sabor and looked southward over 
the future Balad al-Angris ("District of the Eng- 
lish"). Their researches left a small triangle un- 
explored whose apex is on the highlands at Yerim or 
Reda, while its base is made by the South Arabian 
coast from Sheikh Said (once occupied as a coaling- 
station, and still claimed by France) to Shukra. The 
western side of the triangle is formed by the chain 
of Sabor, which parts the Red Sea wadys from those 
running to the ocean; and the eastern side by that 
irregular swell of the land, in which rise the head- 
waters of the southwestern feeders of Wady Hadra- 
maut. The whole triangle drains to the south, and 
is seamed with wady beds debouching on the Aden 
coast, up any one of which lies a natural road to 
the highlands of the interior. These depressions 
bear a natural vegetation, and are for the most part 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 195 

carefully cultivated; but the intervening ridges are 
dusty and unproductive, until an elevation of some 
two thousand feet be reached, near the borders of 
Turkish Yemen. The vegetation extending thence to 
Tais and Yerim is comparatively luxuriant both on 
hill and valley, at any rate in the cooler months; and 
the wadys are perhaps the most beautiful in all Arabia. 
The main north road from Aden lies up Wady 
Taban, and forks near Misamir, some fifty miles in- 
land. Thence one road runs round the main mass 
of Jabal Sabor to reach Tais; another proceeds to 
Katabe, and either by Ibb or Sobe to Yerim. The 
first route was followed (in the reverse direction) by 
Seetzen in 18 10 on his way from Mokha to Aden, 
but we know little of his journey beyond the fact of 
it; and the only description we have is a very brief 
one by S. M. Zwemer, an American missionary to 
the Jews, who made his way, in 1894, from Aden 
to Tais. At his fourth station he found himself in 
the highlands, where stone houses replace the mud 
buildings of the littoral, and the richer vegetation 
begins. The other route, the more important, has 
been described fully by Renzo Manzoni, who traversed 
it on his way from Aden to Sana in 1877, and re- 
traced it on his return. On another occasion he 
diverged to Ibb and Tais. The direct road to Sana 
was taken by the Englishman, Walter Harris, in 1892, 
and a cross-road from Tais to Reda, cutting the apex 
of the triangle, by the botanist, Deflers, in 1887. Her- 
mann Burckhardt came also to Reda from Damar in 



196 ARABIA 

1 89 1. The ascent of the highland plateau Is described 
by all with enthusiasm. Harris speaks of " rich green 
valleys, well timbered in places, and threaded by sil- 
very streams of dancing water; sloping fields gay 
with crops and wild-flowers; terraced or jungle- 
covered slopes; " but not of coffee plantations. These 
are to be found only north of Tais, and in the eastern 
Yafia country. Outside the Turkish border, and 
even within it, the Hawashib tribes render the coun- 
try unsafe; but on the higher ground the small and 
clean stone-built towns spread a more settled influ- 
ence. Northward of Yerim and Reda the uplands 
are bare. 

All these travellers reached Sana, as did others, 
coming from Hodeida, at various times; but, except 
to note Harris's account of the political situation there 
after the rebellion of 1891, we need not look further 
than to Manzoni's book, published eight years earlier. 
The Italian, a grandson of the famous Alessandro 
Manzoni, had proposed, after a stay in Morocco, to 
do pioneer work for his nationality in Abyssinia; but 
for lack of means and other reasons he missed his 
chance. Stranded at Aden in 1877, he conceived the 
Idea of earning name and fame by the exploration 
of Yemen and, ultimately, of Central Arabia. In the 
event, being unable to obtain much support from 
home, unwilling to take serious risk, and somewhat 
Ignorant of what would constitute a genuine title to 
fame, he did no more than make his way thrice to 
Sana between the years 1877 and 1880, seeing on the 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 197 

way most of the southern country, of which but 
little was new ground. His ambitious volume, when 
treating of the ethnology and history of Yemen, re- 
veals the imperfect knowledge and the inexacti- 
tude of its author, and, when making allusion to 
previous explorers, neither profound acquaintance 
with their works nor judicious equity towards them. 
But as regards Sana at least, Manzoni's long so- 
journs there (five months on one occasion) and liberty 
of action enabled him to study topography and society 
more fully and satisfactorily than Niebuhr, Crutten- 
den (in whose visit he disbelieved for no adequate 
reason), or other hastier passengers had studied them. 
Manzoni is the first to give us any idea of the almost 
Moorish aspect of the Yemen capital, the rude splen- 
dour of its stuccoed architecture and alabaster win- 
dows, the propriety of its streets, and the character 
of its older public buildings, whereof the two palaces 
and the great mosque (once a Christian church, and 
known as a " Lesser Ka'bah ") are especially remark- 
able. He deals fully with the climate, and tries to 
explain the unhealthiness which besets this cool city, 
elevated about seven thousand feet above the sea.^ 
The Turkish occupation had resulted already in the 
introduction of a certain measure of European influ- 
ence. Greeks, many of whom had found their way 
down both coasts of the Red Sea after the close of 
the Suez Canal works, were already trafficking in the 
bazaar; western commodities were becoming known; 

^ Its mean temperature is lower by 24° Fahr. than that of the Tehama. 



198 ARABIA 

and the Ottoman authorities had begun to construct 
the fine lodgings and hospital for their officials and 
soldiers, which, according to Zwemer, who saw the 
place in 1894, give a Cairene aspect to the central 
quarter. Manzoni's estimate of the population is half 
that of Harris, made after a lapse of fifteen years, 
and is probably still the more correct. 

Into the unexplored districts, which lie to north 
and east of Sana, the Italian did not venture; not 
even into those cantons of Hamdan, Amran, and 
Kaukeban, which, as being part of the central plateau, 
and too nearly related to Sana to be left in doubtful 
hands, Mukhtar had set himself to conquer thor- 
oughly in 1872. The desire of going beyond Nie- 
buhr, however, had caused Charles Millingen, an 
English doctor in the Turkish service, to make a de- 
tour north of the Hodeida road in 1873; and he was 
followed by the French botanist, A. Deflers, in 1887, 
and by Hermann Burckhardt, in 1890. These can- 
tons are on the same bleak tableland as the capital, 
but somewhat higher still; they are drained towards 
the Jauf by great wadys, Kharid and Swaba, whose 
broad valleys, according to Glaser, were main seats 
of Himyaritic civilisation, and now are well cultivated 
and protected by high-perched towns, which cost 
Mukhtar dear, and have remained covertly hostile to 
the Turks. 

In 1884 the German archaeologist, Edward Glaser, 
explored this same region farther eastward and north- 
ward than his predecessors. Having failed in the 






.■ii'ii^'^^n. 

















"If- 



'I ! 



X 







Houses in Sana 
From a sketch by Manzoni 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 199 

previous year to get beyond Amran, owing to the 
disturbed state of the great Hashid and Bekil tribes, 
he returned to Sana and begged the aid of the Otto- 
man marshal. Thanks to the latter's energetic threat- 
ening of the lieadmen of Arhab and Hashid, Glaser 
was enabled to pass through the volcanic district, 
which succeeds Hamdan in the space behind the two 
great wadys, described above, and to cross Wady 
Swaba into Hashid territory, but not without causing 
loud protest and incipient rebellion. He reached 
Khamr, the first important Hashid town, and the Wady 
Di Bin, both just north of the sixteenth parallel, and 
made fruitful epigraphic discoveries ; but the condition 
of the tribes was critical, and he had to come back 
with all speed into the sphere of effective Turkish influ- 
ence at Amran, His short journey had considerable 
results. For not only did it enable cartographers to 
fill detail into the map of Yemen over the space of a 
degree north of Sana, but it first gave geographers a 
clear conception of the nature of the Yemen " plateau," 
which is in reality the flattened upper part of a long 
inward slope, which is drained by important channels 
northeastward towards the Ahkaf sands. 

But the greater increase of knowledge has been 
secured where there was most to learn; namely, in 
that Sabsean country which falls east from the crests 
west of Sana. The gently sloping tableland is broken 
eastward of the city by high dusty downs, beyond 
which the fall is somewhat steep to an immense hol- 
low running from south to north. This is of steppe- 



200 ARABIA 

like character, except along the course of its drainage 
channels, and in certain pans; and it is bordered on 
the eastward by the high sands of the great southern 
desert. The southern part of this hollow land is Jauf, 
the old centre of Sabaean civilisation, whose capital, 
Marib, stood midway between the fertile districts of 
western Yemen and those rich wadys of Hadramaut 
which were the source of Arabian gums. The 
northern part of the great hollow, divided from Jauf 
by a sandy swell, is the district of Wady Nejran, 
famous as the last refuge of Christianity in Arabia. 
Its waters flow northeastward, skirting the high east- 
ern sands, and probably fall at last into the Wady 
Dauasir. The streams of the Jauf, on the other hand, 
being directed to south of east, either are lost in the 
sands, or filter through to the Wady Hadramaut. 

Arnaud's report on the southern Jauf, made in 1843, 
and his copies of Himyaritic texts, had served to 
dispel all doubt concerning the locality of the chief 
Sabaean province. But since he had seen more in- 
scriptions than he had been able to copy, and it was 
certain that even he had not seen a tithe of the relics 
of early civilisation, more light was still keenly desired 
by all students of ancient Semitic history. Not for five 
and twenty years, however, was a scholar found stout- 
hearted enough to essay Arnaud's painful road again, 
and go beyond his furthest. In 1869 Joseph Halevy, 
a young and learned Jew of French nationality, went 
out to Aden, and, encouraged by Captain S. B. Miles, 
who since that date has done yeoman service for South 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 201 

Arabian geography, tried to make liis way northeast- 
ward in the character of a learned " Kudsi " or 
Jerusalem rabbi ; but turned back from Hauta by the 
Sultan of Lahej, he was forced to go round by sea to 
the Yemen coast. Arrived at last at Sana, he was 
at pains to cultivate relations with the numerous but 
oppressed Jewish community; and by an excursion 
eastward into the downs of Khaulan, he obtained new 
inscriptions and assurance that his assumed character 
was a sufficient protection for life, even if it should 
expose him to daily insult and privation. He deter- 
mined to make for Nejran. Dissuaded from follow- 
ing the Meccan high-road through the Hashid and 
Bekil country, he started in humble guise for Nehm, 
— an independent hill-canton on the arid eastern 
downs, which divide the Sana plateau from the hol- 
low of Jauf, whose relation to Yemen proper he com- 
pared to that of the Tehama coastal strip on the west. 
Crossing Jabal Yam, the highest of the ridges of 
Yemen in absolute elevation, though east of the main 
water-parting, he struck one of the northeastward 
flowing wadys, which descend from Hamdan, and 
so came to el-Gail, the chief settlement of the north- 
ern or lower Jauf, situated in an oasis of palms 
and running waters. Here he discovered the ruins 
of Min, in whose name he saw a tradition of the 
Minseans. A second oasis, el-Khab, was passed, and 
thereafter a painful stretch of sand waste, the fringe 
of the terrible Ahkaf. Partly with a caravan, partly 
with a single Bedawin rafik, in every kind of tribu- 



202 ARABIA 

lation, and protected only by the superstitious fear 
which his assumed sanctity inspired, the learned 
Kudsi skirted the desert. Eastward the sands 
stretched to the horizon. Nothing could he learn of 
what lay beyond those moving dunes, whose very 
name was a terror to his Bedawins. At length dense 
palm-groves appeared on the northern horizon, and 
on June 3, 1870, Halevy was consoled for sufferings 
of body and mind by an enthusiastic welcome at the 
hands of the Jews of Makhlaf in Nejran. 

One could wish this " rabbi," the first European 
since ^Elius Gallus to visit " Negrana," had described 
with fuller detail those interesting valleys of the 
Wadys Nejran and Habuna, which are the " farthest 
north " of any adventurer towards the vast unknown 
region of Southwest Nejd. Nejran, which lies in a 
hollow between two parallel ridges, seems to be note- 
worthy not only for its ancient civilisation, but for 
the modern well-being of its society, as well as its 
peculiar heterodoxy. Halevy failed to see any actual 
relics of Christian ( Colly ridian?) worship during his 
short stay, but the singular tolerance and even favour 
which he found to be shown there to Jews are not 
in the spirit of orthodox Islam. He attests the pro- 
ductiveness and fertility of the wadys, the southern 
of which he judged to be lost soon in the Ahkaf, 
while the northern, Habuna, sends its waters to join 
Wady Dauasir and the streams of Asir. He believed 
that he found in Medinet el-Khudud the ruins of the 
ancient city Negrana or Nagara Metropolis; and the 




Joseph Hal^vy 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 203 

secret of its importance, as well as that of modern 
Nejran, in the caravan traffic, which must pass this 
way from Yemen to Nejd if it would avoid the 
Ahkaf sands. 

Halevy returned to Jauf by a more westerly and 
less desert route, which led him across more than one 
valley full of ruins on the eastern fringe of the 
Sachan plateau. It is evident that the unknown 
highlands, which lie to west of his route and to 
north of Glaser's farthest point, are, even as Amran, 
Arhab, and Hamdan, the first slopes of a great 
eastern decline, draining towards Nejran. Arrived 
once more at el-Gail, the intrepid explorer did not 
return directly to Sana, but proceeded southward 
along the eastern foot of the high downs of Jabal 
Yam till he struck Arnaud's Wady Dana, and came 
to the ruins of Marib and of its famous dam. 
Halevy thus traversed pretty nearly all the wady- 
land and intervening sand ridges of the Jauf; but he 
succeeded in doing little more there than review Ar- 
naud's discoveries, having but little leisure or liberty 
in a district exceptionally intolerant of Jews. Turn- 
ing west at last, in order to avoid his predecessor's 
road, he diverged into the unvisited region of Khaulan, 
which is a southern continuation of the Nehm downs, 
and so came again at last to Sana by way of Tinam. 

Eighteen years later Glaser reached Marib, and 
found that his predecessors had left him much yet to 
do. Sojourning there some thirty days during March 
and April, 1889, under strong Turkish protection, 



204 ARABIA 

he was able not only to copy nearly four hundred 
Himyaritic inscriptions out of a total of over eight 
hundred, collected in the district, but even to make 
a sketch survey on a scale of one in a quarter of a 
million. But his protectors, who scarcely restrained 
the local sharifs from violent interference with this 
work, were unable to procure for him the further 
gratification of passage to the upper Hadramaut ; and 
the gaps left between his limit and the farthest points 
reached by Wrede and by Miles and Munzinger re- 
main for future adventurers to fill. 

The Ottoman authorities have closed Yemen to 
explorers since Glaser's day, and western science has 
found its only informant in an Italian merchant, the 
courageous and devoted Giuseppe Caprotti, survivor 
of two brothers, who first established themselves in 
Sana in 1883. His reports made to the Societa 
d'Esplorazione Commerciale of Milan and his copies 
of new inscriptions have gone far, however, to render 
fresh expeditions unnecessary. 

Note. I have learned recently (through the kindness of Prof. J. 
Euting) that in June, July, and August, 1871, Dr. Adolph Koch visited 
the Sharif at Taif ; but this explorer, now Pastor at Pfungstadt in Hesse 
(formerly Court chaplain to Alexander of Bulgaria), has published no ac- 
count. The same omission must be recorded also of the latest European 
visitor to Mecca, the French- Algerian photographer, Gervais Courtelle- 
mont (1894). See G. Laforest in B. S. G. dc Lyon, xiii. p. loi. 



WESTERN BORDERLANDS 205 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

E. Riippell, Reisen in Nubien, etc. (Frankfurt, 1829). 

R. F. Burton, in J. K. G. S., vol. xlix. p. i. Cf. Gold Mines of Midian 

(London, 1878) and The Land of Midian Revisited (Ijmdon, 1879). 
R. F. Burton, A Pilgrimage to Al Mcdinah and Mecca (Memorial ed., 

London, 1893). Cf article iny. R. G. S., vol. xxiv. p. 208. 
J. Snouck Hurgronje, ^i?^^a (Hague, 1888), with twro portfolios of views. 

Cf article in Verhandl. der Gesellschaft fUr Krdkunde (Berlin), iv. 

p. 140, and communication to Miinchner Allg. Zeitung, Nov. 16, 1885. 
Ileinrich Freiherr von Maltzan, Meine Wallfahrt nach Melcka (Leipzig, 

1865). 
J. F. Keane, Six Months in Meccah (London, 1881) ; also My Journey to 

Medinah (London, 1881) ; Six Months in the Hejaz (I^ondon, 18S7). 
J. Hamilton, Sinai, Ifedjaz, and Soudan (London, 1857) ; C. M. Doughty, 

Arabia Deserta (Cambridge, 1888). 
R. Manzoni, // Yemen (Rome, 1884) ; G. Schweinfurth, in Verh. d. Ges. 

fiir Erdkuiide (Berlin, 1889), No. 7; S. M. Zwemer, Arabia, the 

Cradle of Islam, p. 62 (Edinburgh, 1900). 
C. Millingen, in J. R. G. S., 1874, p. 118; A. Deflers, Voyage en Yemen 

(Paris, 1889). 
J. Halevy, Rapport d'une mission archeologiquc, etc., Extraitlf. dtt fournal 

Asiatique, 1872. Cf. Bull. Soc. Geographic, "^V^* serie, vol. vi. pp. 5, 

249, 581 ; vol. xiii. p. 466. 
E. Glaser has published several works as a result of his explorations in 

Yemen, notably Skizze der Geschichte und Geographic Arabiens, vol. 

ii. (Berlin, 1890); but for ordinary purposes of geography it is 

enough to refer to his map in Petermann' s Mittheilungen, 1886, Taf. 

i., and his articles in the same periodical for 1884, pp. 170, 204, and 

1886, p. I. Notice of his third journey occurs in the same for 1888, 

p. 221, 1889, p. 27. 
H. A. ?>\.GXX\, Journal of a Missionary Journey into Arabia Felix (London, 

1858). 
W. B. Harris, A Journey through the Yemen (London, 1893). 
H. Burckhardt, in Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde, 1902, No. 7, 

P- 593- 



CHAPTER IX 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 



IF the fact stated in the previous chapter concerning 
the general character of Arabia, that it is a huge 
plateau gently tilted up from east to west, be consid- 
ered in connection with the uniform northeastward 
flow of its inland drainage, it will be inferred that 
the highest average level must be in the southwest 
part of the peninsula. The actual corner of the ele- 
vated continental oblong is situate in the Radman dis- 
trict of Yemen northwest of Damar and southeast 
of Sana. There the outer rim of the plateau returns 
eastward, or rather north of east, and passes out of our 
knowledge into the great sand desert; and as on the 
west, so also on the south, there is a broad outer fringe 
sloping seawards. The buttress range, Jabal Sabor, 
which falls to the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, forms 
a sort of gable ridge dividing the westward and 
southward slopes of the Arabian roof, and from the 
one flank of it short wadys run to the Red Sea, from 
the other to the outer ocean. 

The southern borderland resembles the western in 
being composed of a littoral belt of lowland, behind 
which the continental mass rises towards the rim of 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 207 

the inner plateau; but for two reasons the coastal 
strip on the south is the less broad and continuous. 
Firstly, because it has not been built out seaward in 
coral formations to the same degree as the shore of 
the quieter and hotter western waters; secondly, be- 
cause, on the easier slope of this outer face of the 
plateau, the seaward drainage has exerted a less vio- 
lent denuding action. We find the outlying buttresses 
approaching for the most part much nearer to the sea 
than in Hijaz or Yemen, and at several points falling 
almost to the tide-mark. 

The general eastward decline of the inner plateau 
affects to some extent the drainage of its southern 
face, causing the main part to flow more east than 
south. The most important volume of surface water 
is that thrown off by the highly elevated southwestern 
corner of the continental mass, which catches the main 
monsoon precipitation; and this water we find not 
to rush directly to the sea, but to flow for a long dis- 
tance down a channel almost parallel to the rim of the 
plateau above it, being slow to obey the southward 
slope. These channels collect at last into one, the 
Wady Masila or Hadramaut, and reach the sea not 
far from the midway point of the south coast.* From 
the remotest head of this system of wadys north of 
Reda in Yemen to their final outfall east of Sihut, the 
distance is not less than five hundred miles as the 
crow flies, and the actual course of the longest stream 

1 Bent suggested that the lower parts of these wadys are old arms of 
the sea. 



2o8 ARABIA 

must be nearer eight hundred. After the main wady 
of Central Arabia, er-Rumma, the Wady Hadramaut 
is the longest and most important channel in the 
peninsula ^ of which we know with certainty. 

In its westernmost part the southward slope of the 
plateau is much disturbed by hard intrusive rocks 
which, thrust through the calcareous mass, now stand 
up as short mountain chains of various direction, 
from which a series of short wadys falls to the coast. 
Eastward, however, of the fiftieth degree of longitude, 
such disturbances are less apparent; and the southern 
face of the plateau, which itself seems to become lower 
and lower in general elevation, slopes more evenly 
and gently to the ocean, masked by blown sands of 
the central desert, and less deeply and frequently 
scored by wadys. The higher ground on the south- 
west and the great elevation of the land in Oman 
to northeast both rob the littoral from Dofar to 
Ras el-Had of a measure of the rainfall that is its 
due. 

No part of this borderland could have been said 
to be well known in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and no part except the immediate vicinity of 
Aden can be said to be thoroughly known at the 
beginning of the twentieth. Before 1850 most evi- 
dence, curiously enough, was forthcoming for that 
central section of it which we now regard as least 
accessible, the Hadramaut proper; for not only had 

1 There is some question whether Wady Masila be the same as the 
main Hadramaut or a lateral affluent. 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 209 

the Wady Meifat been cursorily explored up to Isan 
by Cruttenden and Wellsted, and the land east of 
it to the longitude of Sheher and the sixteenth par- 
allel of latitude by Wrede, but more particular inquiry 
had been made on the coast by Haines, Wellsted, and 
others about the interior territories of Hadramaut 
than about those to west of them, on which even 
Niebuhr had gleaned but little. This comparative 
ignorance of the western territories persisted for about 
twenty years longer. We have spoken of the causes 
which retarded the influence of British Aden in the 
northern country. It need only be added here that 
suspicion and defiance of the intruding Christian 
power were even more marked in the eastern, on the 
threshold of which the hostile Sultan of the Beni 
Uthman kept guard ; and the local determination to 
exclude Prankish travellers became all the more obsti- 
nate after a drought which, as Wrede tells us, inaus- 
piciously followed on the discovery of Nakab el-Hajar. 
It was not till imperial officials had long replaced the 
East Indian Company's government in Aden that 
Great Britain began to make her arms, her gold, and 
her commercial influence so generally felt in south- 
western Arabia that Europeans could be sure of pro- 
tection and tolerance east and north of Lahej. 

Thirty-five years after the expedition of Cruttenden 
and Wellsted the Wady Meifat was at last revisited, 
and the further points aimed at in vain by Wrede were 
attained. Captain S. B. Miles resolved in 1870 to 
put to the proof the friendly relations which he had 

14 



2IO ARABIA 

formed in Aden with the chiefs of the northeastern 
territories, and, accompanied by the well-known sci- 
entific explorer, W. M. Munzinger, who soon after 
perished on the opposite coast of Africa, proceeded by- 
sea to Bir Ali, and struck inland. On the whole, he 
was justified of his confidence. Though the recep- 
tion of the travellers was not cordial in the larger 
settlements, Hauta and Habban, some chief with a 
wholesome respect for the British raj, or a lively sense 
of favours to come at the hands of its representatives, 
was always found to extend protection and hospitality ; 
and the party ascended Wady Meifat safely almost 
to its head, where a narrow and not lofty ridge shuts 
off the source of a southerly feeder of the Hadramaut 
system, the Wady Nisab. Miles learned, indeed, that 
by way of Nisab itself, the chief settlement of that 
valley, and of Harib on a more westerly wady, a 
direct and easy road leads to Marib and the Jauf of 
Yemen. But British influence did not and does not 
extend, for however short a space, beyond the Ha- 
dramaut watershed; and Miles, holding an official 
position, could not risk a passage into foreign terri- 
tory. He turned, therefore, southwest through the 
Auwalik country, and, striking the head of a south- 
westward valley, Wady Jeramis, returned to the Lahej 
coast. 

The latter part of Miles's route in the Fadli terri- 
tory and what lies north of it towards the Hadra- 
maut water-parting, which is Niebuhr's " Jafa," has 
been seen since, notably by Theodore Bent on his last 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 211 

journey with his wife in 1897. The latest attempt 
to review the Wady Meifat, made by the Austrian 
archaeological expedition of that same year, which 
proposed to penetrate north of Habban to the unknown 
valleys of upper Hadramaut, was frustrated by the 
dissensions of the leaders. The Austrians returned to 
the coast after reaching Wellsted's furthest point, 
Isan. 

From a comparison of these travellers' notes with 
certain information gathered in Aden and Hauta by 
Von Maltzan in 1873 ^ sufficient idea can now be 
formed of as much of the southwestern borderland as 
lies south of the ridge behind which the heads of the 
Hadramaut wadys rise. This ridge appears to be di- 
versified by more than one volcanic excrescence, which 
attains a comparatively high altitude. The Bents as- 
signed to two mountain masses seen to north from the 
Yafia and the Auwalik countries respectively, equal alti- 
tudes of ten thousand feet; but such estimates, made 
from a distance by observers who see ranges or the 
rims of plateaux from one side only, are notoriously 
untrustworthy. The country south of this ridge is 
evidently of the same character as the lower hill district 
of Yemen, with which it is indeed continuous. It is 
the home of a settled society, including no nomad 
element, and living in and about villages and small 
towns of the type met with on the roads from Mokha 
or Hodeida to Sana. This society cultivates a series of 
short southward-trending wady-beds, and has direct re- 
lations with the sea through the small ports of Shukra, 



aiCL ARABIA 

Suriya, Haura, Bir Ali, and Ba'1-Haf. The valley 
lands, though well planted, are not so fertile as in 
the better parts of Yemen, and the sandy aridity of 
the intervening ridges recalls the western Tehama; 
but equally with high Yemen this south border was 
once a seat of Sabsean civilisation, and contains its 
memorials. 

This broad and fertile settled strip of mingled low- 
land and highland does not end eastward with Wady 
Meifat, but is continued for some distance beyond 
Makalla, where it has been crossed and recrossed 
by the Hadramaut explorers. Thereafter the high 
slopes grow barer and bleaker, and approach nearer 
to the sea, until (so far as we know) the productive 
region is narrowed to occasional ribbons of alluvial 
coast-land, about the outfalls of the rare wadys. The 
most blessed of these littoral ribbons is that of Dofar, 
between the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth degrees of lon- 
gitude, behind which the land rises to an exceptionally 
high level. Bent visited it in 1890, and as Lieutenant 
Smith of the " Palinurus " had done before him, suc- 
ceeded in penetrating a short way up the first slopes of 
the higher ground. He saw a good deal of flowing and 
standing water, and natural vegetation; but as there 
is apparently no settled society except on the shore, 
and none but a wild type of nomad possessed of hardly 
any livestock on the heights, we must conclude that 
this fertility is not continued far inland. 

It should, however, be confessed that, as yet, we 
know very little indeed of the borderland of Arabia be- 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 213 

tween Capes Fartak and Had, which is the territory 
of the Mahra, Gara, and Jeneba tribes, but in great 
part claimed by Oman, These tribes are all of a very 
primitive type, and, having no commercial aptitude, 
unanimously repel strangers. It is probable — of the 
Mahra tribes it is practically certain — that all are 
survivors of the oldest Arabian race, forced out of 
richer lands in the south by the Semitic peoples, 
who now hold the peninsula. They speak a tongue 
which is at bottom not Semitic, practise animistic cults, 
and have all the hunted and suspicious habits of a 
refugee population. Carter, the surgeon of the " Pa- 
linurus," contributed valuable results of inquiries into 
the character of the Mahra and Gara to the Asiatic 
Society of Bombay between 1845 ^"^ 1847; ^^^^ some 
further study of the Mahra has been made in the 
island of Socotra, which pertains to their sultan, and 
in his capital of Kishin itself.^ The facts about their 
proto-Arabic speech are now ascertained, but of their 
mainland home no more has been learned, for they 
have allowed no European eye to see beyond its utter- 
most fringe. Since, however, they would hardly have 
been left in undisturbed possession, or have reached 
their present state of degradation if their valleys were 
such as characterise the southwestern borderland, 
we may be almost sure their territories are all sandy 
steppes of the kind that Wellsted looked on in 1835, 
when brought to the eastern frontier of the Jeneba. 

1 Most recently by Herr W. Hein and his wife. See Zeitschrift d. 
Ges.fiir Erdkunde, 1902, No. 9. 



214 ARABIA 

The most important part of the borderland remains 
to be considered, — the ill known inner region of the 
centre. The Hadramaut which, properly speaking, is 
that land of wadys carved almost horizontally in the 
upper part of the southern face of the continental mass, 
from west of the forty-fifth degree of longitude to 
east of the fifty-first, long remained the despair of the 
curious in the history and geography of Arabia. 
Wrede had seen only a narrow section of it in 1843, 
and of that no detailed account appeared for thirty 
years. No one dared to follow him for yet twenty 
more. Miles, Maltzan, and others had to be content 
with carrying on Haines's inquiries in Aden, Makalla, 
and Sihut, where they had to deal with too much local 
jealousy to make sensible progress. 

There would indeed have been no advance in our 
knowledge of the Hadramaut to be signalised within 
that long period, had it not been for inquiries carried 
on under very different conditions at a great distance 
from the locality itself. In 1883 the Dutch Colonial 
Department thought it expedient, in view of the in- 
creasing Arab influx into its East Indian possessions, 
to obtain an authoritative report on the origin and 
relations of the immigrants; and it charged with the 
task an able Arabic scholar, L. W. C. Van den Berg, 
stationed in Java. He found a large proportion of the 
Arabs to be come from the Hadramaut, a district in 
whose emigrant natives Burckhardt had long ago seen 
the most industrious element of the Meccan population, 
and Botta the most prosperous of the merchants in the 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 215 

Yemen Tehama. So full and interesting was the in- 
formation obtained by Van den Berg from men newly 
come from Hadramaut, living in dependence on the 
Javanese government and to some degree emancipated 
from local prejudice, that he was able in 1885 to pub- 
lish a geographical treatise on the country, which later 
research has seldom falsified. While taking account 
of Wrede, the genuineness of whose adventures he 
certified, and other European inquirers before and 
since, he kept studiously to his native authorities, and 
the chart which he appended was based on a sketch 
made by a Hadramaut sayyid, and already communi- 
cated to the Ley den professor De Goeje. 

Other seven years passed, and independent nar- 
ratives of Christian eye-witnesses were at last forth- 
coming, though the French botanist, Deflers, had been 
foiled near Makalla in 1888. Two distinct European 
expeditions went up into Hadramaut, under the segis 
of Aden, in the course of 1893. British influence had 
been growing steadily on the coast. The deputy sul- 
tans of Sheher and Makalla are not only dependent for 
large part of their revenues on the African trade, for 
which Aden is the principal mart, but have intimate 
direct relations with India, where their suzerain re- 
sides; and their attitude towards the Power which 
controls the native states of India had been changed 
considerably by the results of the mutiny. Firmly 
seated there, to all appearance, and controlling the 
native princes with whom Hadramaut has communi- 
cation, predominant east, west, and south in Oman, 



2i6 ARABIA 

Aden, and Zanzibar, and absolute mistress of the In- 
dian Sea, Great Britain can at her will give law to the 
coastal chiefs who have not only hereditary dominion 
in the interior of Hadramaut, but are its commercial 
brokers. 

She has need, however, to be in earnest. These 
sultans are naturally unwilling to strain their power 
and compromise their social repute by the introduction 
of Nazarenes into the most fanatically exclusive val- 
leys of Arabia, or to become responsible for their 
safety where a religious hierarchy of sayyids, not to 
mention those knight-errants of Islam, the sharlfs, 
seriously restricts their power. The governors of 
Aden, therefore, have been fully justified in refusing 
to exert pressure on behalf of certain would-be ex- 
ploring parties whose qualifications were not such as 
to promise the best scientific results; and when coun- 
tenance was given at last in 1893, to the archaeologist, 
Leo Hirsch, it was because he was known to be a 
profound Arabic scholar, expert in the law of Islam, 
who would conduct himself tactfully. When, shortly 
after, it was given also to Theodore Bent, despite his 
lack of this qualification, it was because his party 
included an Indian Moslem surveyor and his staff, 
who might be expected to make a solid contribution 
to geography. 

Hirsch, who proposed to assume the native dress, 
but to travel as a Christian desirous to study the liter- 
ature and custom of Islam, found that the letters, 
which he took at first, availed him not at Sheher, 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 217 

Sihut, Kishin, or Makalla; and it was only after he 
had returned to Aden, and provided himself with more 
peremptory recommendations, that the sultan of the 
last-named town acceded to his request for escort and 
safe conduct to the interior. This potentate, nephew 
of the head of the great Amudi family, was not only 
at that time the sultan most involved with the British 
in Aden and India, but had apparently the strongest 
single representative in the Hadramaut. His Jemadar, 
from his castle of el-Hauta in the Wady Ain, holds 
the centre of the fertile inner country, controlling 
the numerous settlements of Wadys Doan, Amd, and 
Adim, and the large towns of the main valley, Sliibam, 
Saiyun, and Terim ; and thus can cut off the semi- 
nomadic society of the high eastern valleys from the 
suspicious Mahra tribes, which dominate the lower 
course of the main wady. 

The guides conducted Hirsch through the culti- 
vated coastal district behind Makalla into the Wady 
Hauaire, and so up to a bare down-land, " Jol," rising 
to six thousand five hundred feet, by the same route 
as that over which Wrede was brought back after his 
imprisonment; and the first settlement, reached in 
Hadramaut, was that small town of Sif, where the 
European pioneer had so nearly lost his life. De- 
scending the Wady Doan, Hirsch touched his prede- 
cessor's route once more at Haura, but thereafter not 
again ; for Wrede had confined himself to the easterly 
region without tracing any tributary valley to its out- 
fall in the main channel. Being a Himyaritic scholar, 



2i8 ARABIA 

Hirsch was minded, before all things, to see the ruins 
of which Wrede had heard in the tributary Wady 
Gaiban (Niebuhr's Ghahbun), which falls into the 
Doan valley below Hajarein. He found there both 
buildings and inscriptions of a considerable ancient 
town, but not those " royal tombs " credited by 
Wrede. Hajarein, lying high to south, seems to have 
inherited the commercial advantages of this town, and 
the shrine of Meshed AH to north, where is a cyclo- 
pean grave, its sanctity. Striking across a narrow 
ridge on the east into the parallel Wady el-Ain, 
the explorer passed through the rich groves and 
well-stocked pastures of Ajlaniya, and then bore 
northward over the bare plateau towards the main 
Hadramaut valley. On the midway summit, com- 
manding the road and a group of great valleys, is 
el-Hauta. 

The Jemadar, head of the powerful Kaiti family, 
treated Hirsch much as the sultan of the neighbouring 
Amd had treated Wrede. Having not the slightest 
doubt of his visitor's European origin, and the fullest 
assurance that his character of a scholar and physician 
was assumed, he showed no care for these things, but 
extended the right hand of fellowship, and after hos- 
pitably entreating the Hakim, forwarded him to his 
deputy in Shibam. There and then for the first time 
a European entered what we must regard as the trunk 
wady of the Hadramaut, the locality of its largest 
settlements, and the centre of its ancient and particular 
society. 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 219 

Hirsch met with a cold reception in Shibam, but 
sufficient tolerance to justify him in pushing down the 
valley, so far as the Kaiti writ would run. For better 
security he procured a guide from the Kathiri tribesmen 
who roam the steppe to north, and set out for Saiyun 
and Terim. Neither in the former town nor on the 
road had he any misadventure, but at Terim he found 
intolerant sayyids prepared to dispute his credentials, 
and after but an hour or two's sojourn had to make 
all haste back to Shibam, and fortify his position by 
reference to the Jemadar. Warned not to trust him- 
self much longer even in Shibam, he gathered what 
observation of things ancient and modern he might, 
and set out again for the coast. Being no longer 
under necessity to call at el-Hauta, he could strike 
directly up the populous Wady Bin Ali, and so into 
the upper part of the great valley of Adim which falls 
out near Terim. At the head of this he found himself 
once more on the downs of the Jol, a wild, arid, broken 
country, intersected by Hiimaras, among which his 
guides strayed ; but always descending, they came out 
at Nega, where the Amudi sultan has found indifferent 
coal measures, and so through the palm groves and 
rich fields of Gail to Makalla again. 

Bent, marching inland in the winter of that same 
year, and under the same auspices, retraced Hirsch's 
route so closely, both in going and coming, that his 
steps need not be followed. Besides the surveyor, Imam 
Bahadur Sharif, and his staff, the party included a 
botanist, William Lunt, sent from Kew, an Egyptian 



220 ARABIA 

naturalist, and the leader's wife, who may claim the 
distinction of being the only European woman, be- 
sides Lady Anne Blunt, to penetrate the interior of 
Arabia.^ The one important deviation made from the 
tracks of predecessors was a short excursion from 
Shibam up the Wady Ser, which comes down from 
the north, carrying a little-used caravan path from the 
desert, and contains the venerated tomb of the Prophet 
Saleh, the mythical scourge of the impious people of 
'Ad. It seems to be a rude stone barrow not unlike, 
but smaller than, the grave of Eve near Jidda. The 
tomb of the other prehistoric prophet of Hadramaut, 
Hud, lies far down the main wady, and to visit it and 
the volcanic (?) district of Bir Borhut was Bent's fur- 
ther plan. But he had no better fortune than Wrede. 
The Kathiri Bedawins, a small-framed, half nude, and 
wholly savage race, were reported to be closing all 
eastern roads, and the Jemadar refused to further any 
project for opening negotiations with them. Bent's 
party met with much the same reception as Hirsch : 
bare tolerance, on condition it travelled neither far 
nor long. Much less able to enter into intimate rela- 
tions with the native society than his predecessor. 
Bent brought back less full and exact information. 
But his party was the better equipped and able to use 
the camera and take observations. Imam Sharif's 
map is a better survey than we possess of any other 



1 I am not taking account of possible Greek women in Yemen or 
elsewhere ; or of women in Moslem seraglios, such as her of British 
nationality who was seen by Keane in Mecca. 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 221 

part of Arabia, except of Midian or the district of 
Aden ; and Liint's notes on the flora served to sup- 
plement and check the valuable treatise on Hirsch's 
collections, contributed by Schweinfurth. 

On reviewing the reports of these explorers one 
is struck with the small addition that they made to 
the information which Van den Berg had gleaned at 
second hand. His fourfold division of the central 
borderland into horizontal belts was roughly correct. 
Behind the lowland belt of the littoral flats and foot- 
hills rises a bleak belt of downs diversified by few 
upstanding peaks. Behind that again a belt of deep- 
cut wadys, sloping eastward ; and, finally, a naked 
calcareous belt, which shuts off the great central 
sands. In the valley belt Van den Berg had appre- 
hended rightly the relation between the trunk wady 
of many names, descending from Shabwa,^ whence 
Wrede had set out for his Ahkaf trip, and the great 
southern wadys, Amd, Doan, Hajarein, el-Ain, which 
with the continuous fertility of its middle course and 
the subsequent tributaries Bin Ali and Adim. His 
contrast of the sandy upper reaches of the main valley 
with the continuous fertility of its middle course and 
southern feeders was correct; as was also his gen- 
eral idea of its settlements, as consisting, with the 
exception of a few towns, rather in scattered farms 
than compact villages. He was perhaps led farthest 
astray in the matter of the towns. Not only did he 

^ Or Sawa; the old capital of the " Atramolitse," Sabota, where, says 
Pliny, were sixty temples. 



222 ARABIA 

place all the principal settlements of the trunk wady 
from Shibam to Terim too far east on his chart, but he 
estimated their magnitude wrongly, Shibam, which is 
the largest, having some six thousand inhabitants, he 
placed far below Terim and Saiyun, to which Hirsch 
assigned about four thousand and four thousand five 
hundred respectively. But the rivalry of these towns 
is such, and the changes in them are so frequent, that 
it is not impossible that Van den Berg was right at the 
moment, in regarding Saiyun as the capital of Hadra- 
maut, with Terim for its only peer. 

Except the ten-storeyed mud castles of the rulers, 
of a type already noticed by Wrede in Khoraibe, the 
chief town of Wady Doan, Hirsch saw little worthy 
of remark in these towns. Terim, as he described 
it, with its great market square and five walled 
quarters, certainly seems the most metropolitan; 
while the numerous mosques, the well ordered streets, 
and the immense gardens conjure up a more imposing 
vision of Saiyun than either he or the Bents suggest 
of Shibam. The latter, however, has immense palm 
groves, and its proximity to the seat of power in el- 
Hauta to account for its larger population. Neither 
the towns nor the wady-lands seem to differ materially 
from those of southern Yemen. The whole population 
of Hadramaut is probably not two hundred thousand, 
and it buys little and sells less, being in the main 
content to support itself in self-righteous seclusion. 

The interest taken hitherto in the Hadramaut has 
been due rather to its ancient fame. The fact that it 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 223 

retains a tribal name as old as Greek times, and that 
it seems to have been one of the incense districts, 
encouraged great hopes of archaeological discovery in 
its hidden valleys. These have been disappointed so 
far. The gleanings of inscriptions brought back by 
Wrede, Hirsch, and Bent are meagre beside the har- 
vest reaped by Glaser in Marib alone. It must be 
remembered, however, that the latter succeeded where 
predecessors had found but little, and that Hadramaut 
has yet to be visited by any one so well protected and 
so zealously aided in his quest. Townsmen do not 
yield the secret possessions of their houses to the first 
comer, be he even as expert in their speech as Hirsch, 
much less to one, like Bent, communicating in halting 
Arabic or through interpreters. 

Interest in Hadramaut therefore should not be suf- 
fered to decline yet. About half the trunk wady 
remains still unexplored, and the least known part is 
that upon which border the ancient Malira tribes. It 
is reported the only scene of actual volcanic activity 
on the mainland of Arabia; but an explorer has 
yet to see the smoke of Bir Borhut, that great well 
cursed by Ali, according to the " Jihan Numa." 
Moreover, its society seems to present peculiar feat- 
ures of great interest to students of Semitic life. 
Apart from the rest of the peninsula, and protected 
from invasion by the surrounding deserts, the Ha- 
dramaut would appear to have preserved a very 
primitive and typical form of self-governing com- 
munity, wherein four orders of graduated dignity 



224 ARABIA 

divide the state. Two are aristocratic; one of these, 
that of the sayyids, is supreme in virtue of sacred 
descent ; the other, the tribal class, ranks next in virtue 
of warlike qualities. Below these is a middle class of 
townsmen and cultivators, who again take precedence 
of a large class of slaves, mostly of African origin. 
But these have recognised rights as against their 
masters in return for service, and are in no way 
coerced or oppressed. These elements exist, indeed, 
in other parts of the Semitic world, but probably 
nowhere in the same Hellenic harmony. Nowhere has 
the unarmed sayyid the same assured superiority to 
the armed tribesman ; nowhere has the slave so recog- 
nised a position in the commonwealth. This division 
of the Hadramaut community has been recognised by 
all the travellers, as well as by Van den Berg, as an 
institution of old standing. 



SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS 225 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

On Aden, etc., see Capt. F. M. Hunter's Monograph (London, 1877). 

S. B. Miles and W. M. Munzinger, \nj. R. G. S., 1871, p. 210. 

J. T. Bent, On the Yafei and Fadhli Countries, in G./., 1898, p. 411. Cf. 

Southern Arabia, chaps, vi.-xvii. ; xviii.-xxiii. ; xxxv.-xxxvii., and 

G.J., 1894, p. 315 (Hadramaut), and 1895, Aug. p. 109 (Dofar). 
C. Graf von Landberg, Die Siidarabische Expedition (Munich, 1899). Cf. 

D. H. Miiller on ditto (Vienna, 1899). 
H. Freiherr von Maltzan, Reisen in Arabien, etc. (Brunswick, 1873). 
L. W. C. Van den Berg, Le Hadhramut et les Colonies Arabes de rArchipel 

(Batavia, 1885). 
L. Hirsch, Reise in Sud Arabien (Leyden, 1897). Cf. Petermann's Mit- 

theil. 1894, pp. 20, 246. 
Capt. J. B. Haines gave an account of Smith's visit to the Gara in 

/. R. G. S.,xv. p. 117. 



15 



CHAPTER X 

EASTERN BORDERLANDS 

SOME seven hundred miles east of the mouth of 
Wady Hadramaut the Arabian coast returns 
northwestward at almost a right angle, and after a 
course of about four hundred miles again returns south 
of west for a considerable distance. Thus at the south- 
eastern corner a great oblong excrescence disturbs the 
oblong regularity of the peninsula. The structural re- 
lation of this, the territory of Oman, to the main mass 
of Arabia, is not certain ; for, except on its coasts, the 
broad isthmus of connection is absolutely unexplored. 
We do not know if the great south desert falls towards 
Oman, or if it rises, or, again, if it still maintains the 
level it had to north of Hadramaut, seven hundred 
miles away. And, accordingly, it is an open question 
whether we should regard the main plateau as pro- 
longed eastward to Oman, or, rather, as ended at some 
point much further inland, leaving a sandy hollow be- 
tween itself and the distinct elevated tract of Oman. 
One thing is certain : though the coastal hills of Oman 
are not greatly different from the highland slopes upon 
other seaward faces of the peninsula, the great con- 
glomerate mass lying behind them, Jabal Akhdar, is 



EASTERN BORDERLANDS 227 

much more of a true mountain chain than exists else- 
where in the Borderlands, except where there has been 
volcanic action. The deviation of the range northward 
through Ras el-Jabal to the sea seems to suggest that 
it is in structural relation rather with the Persian than 
with the Arabian heights. 

Jabal Akhdar obliquely divides habitable Oman into 
two parts. The first is a narrow littoral district, slop- 
ing northeastward from the crests to the Gulf of 
Oman, but disturbed by a subsidiary range, which in 
the southern district rises steep and high from the 
sea. The second part is much less well known. Lying 
behind the chain, it apparently slopes, not away from 
it, but towards it from a higher level to west. On 
the north and south it falls steeply to the Persian Gulf 
and the Indian Ocean respectively; on the west it 
merges in the great southern sands. Both these dis- 
tricts are most fertile in their midmost parts, which 
enjoy full benefit of the monsoon vapours, condensed 
by the higher summits of Jabal Akhdar. Both were 
seen at their best by Wellsted, but neither completely. 
In the first, the pioneer explorer avoided the tangled 
highlands of the subsidiary range, which stretch south- 
eastward behind Maskat. In the second, he saw noth- 
ing of what lies north of Ibri, where the sands seem to 
retire far to south and west, leaving a broad typical 
tract of steppe and oasis, abutting on the Persian Gulf. 
Wellsted' s steps in midmost Oman, on both sides 
of Jabal Akhdar, were followed very closely within 
two years by the French traveller, Aucher Eloy, 



228 ARABIA 

who made a botanical excursion by way of Nakhl 
(" Naxal ") to the main chain. Having crossed 
by Wellsted's path to Nezwa, and found the Wa- 
habis already come down to Gabrin, Eloy turned 
south and rounded the southern butt of the higher 
chain by way of the gorge of Siki into the Wady 
Semail, which he followed to the coast again. His 
line of return was new. But the account which his 
letters, posthumously published, gave of any part of 
his route, was so summary as to add little or nothing 
to Wellsted's, except in the way of botany. Like 
Burton in Midian forty years later, the French savant 
found the wealth of floral genera out of all propor- 
tion to the poverty of species. The same short tour 
has been made since Eloy's day by Miles, when he 
was become colonel and British Resident in Maskat, 
and from his experiences in 1876 we may learn 
more. 

The high peaks of the secondary or coastal range 
begin in the north, behind Maskat, with Jabal Tyin, 
which passes five thousand feet, and is, in a sense, 
connected with Jabal Akhdar through Jabal Nakhl. 
Between the latter and the main chain intervenes a 
low col which, approached by the broad and fertile 
Semail valley, carries the main road to the interior 
country. There are, in fact, two southerly continu- 
ations of Jabal Akhdar. This already described is 
one; the other forks south from Nakhl, round the 
head of Wady Tyin. Though warm springs are found 
in Oman, the formation does not appear to be volcanic. 



EASTERN BORDERLANDS 229 

Jabal Akhdar itself ("Green Mountain") belies its 
name, for it is a bare cretaceous range with conglom- 
erate core, rising to a supreme height of ten thousand 
feet, and falling abruptly on the far side. Its folds 
shelter a few settlements of Beni Riyam, who also 
hold the ultramontane valleys of Nezwa, Shiraizi, 
and Siki, and cultivate sugar and the vine. The larger 
villages are well built and fenced, and rich in orchards 
and palm groves. Numerous waters flow west and 
south, but none reach the coast perennially above 
ground, not even those of Wady Semail, which supply 
the eighteen miles of date groves and twenty thousand 
inhabitants that pertain to the chief settlement in the 
valley. Neither the cismontane nor the ultramontane 
wadys of inland Oman, though owning allegiance to 
the Imam of Maskat, are his to deal with at will. The 
tribal chiefs maintain their autonomy, and their suze- 
rain has more often defended himself against their 
attacks than profited by their contributions. 

Miles went inland again eight years later, with the 
object of filling the blank left between the track taken 
by Wellsted from Sur to the southernmost province 
of Jailan, and his own and Eloy's towards Jabal 
Akhdar. Rounding Jabal Tyin by the Kahza pass. 
Miles dropped down into the wady bed, which takes 
its name from the mountain, and supports with its 
underground waters a chain of thirty villages of the 
Beni Jabar. Bending northeastward below Gobreh, 
this valley reaches the coast near Kiryat by a remark- 
able cleft long known to sailors as the " Devil's Gap," 



230 ARABIA 

and feared by caravaners for the freshets which in 
a few minutes may fill it from wall to wall. 

About the rest of the seaward part of Oman there 
was not much left to learn. The low northern littoral 
of the Batina, which extends from Sib to Shinas, is 
of wondrous fertility and dense population along its 
shore line and wady beds, but desolate inland between 
the streams. Nor was much to be learned again of 
the extreme northern part, where the dividing ridge 
runs out seawards in the huge promontory of Ras 
al-Jabal, to end abruptly in the "Anvil Head," Ras 
Musandam. For this is but one lofty spine of rock 
fringed with coves which the British seamen ex- 
plored during the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
tury in their harrying of the Jauasmi pirates. But 
there was, and is, much to learn of the northern part 
of inner Oman, south and west of the route from 
Shinas to Sharja, travelled by Whitelock in 1837. 
Its central settlement, Bireima, was not marked on 
Berghaus' map in 1835. Become a Wahabi strong- 
hold, and the residence of the representative of Riad, 
it rejected the authority of the Sultan of Oman; and 
not till the temporal power of the Sa'iid dynasty had 
so far declined before the rising star of Hail, that it 
no longer maintained its influence on the Gulf coasts, 
could the Maskat government assure any one's safety 
beyond the Batina coast. 

So far, however, was the position of affairs altered 
by 1875 (four years after Midhat Pasha had cut com- 
munication between Nejd and Oman by occupying 



EASTERN BORDERLANDS 231 

Hasa), that Miles was able to make, under escort, a 
flying visit to Bireima in November of that year. 
A march of about forty miles from Sohar up wadys, 
with intermittent water in their beds, brought his 
party to the frontier of the Batina, and by a low pass 
(i860 feet) it crossed the dividing ridge into the 
ultramontane province, Dahira. There Miles found 
the land more elevated and steppelike, but dotted, like 
Nejd, with occasional oases of surprising fertility. Of 
these that of Bireima, lying some fifteen hundred 
feet above the sea, four miles long, and containing 
several distinct villages and some fifteen thousand 
souls, is chief. An intelligent and not fanatical folk 
cultivates its irrigated plots and orchards to the last 
arable inch, and pastures large flocks on the surround- 
ing steppe, under the protection of a great mud fort. 
The missionary Zwemer, who was next to reach it, 
this time from Abu Thabi on the Gulf coast, found 
its society in 1901 still Wahabi in sentiment, though 
submissive to the heretical Maskat rule. 

There is evidently a fertile oasis country to south 
of Bireima. Miles received a pressing invitation to 
visit el-Madra, one of its chief settlements, and 
Zwemer was informed of a series of villages lying 
under a ridge, Jabal Okdat, which runs parallel to the 
main spine of Oman, but much further inland. Al- 
though the former explorer speaks of standing at 
Bireima on the edge of " the inhospitable sea of sand 
and waste that stretches without break or interruption 
for nearly eight hundred miles across the peninsula," 



232 ARABIA 

we may reasonably doubt If the true desert begins 
for many marches to south and west of his farthest 
point. Probably Major Cox, who, it is lately reported, 
has succeeded at last in traversing all Dahira from 
Bireima to Ibri, thus connecting the observations of 
Wellsted and ]\Iiles, will have better information to 
give us on J^bal Okdat and the desert fringe. 

If geographers are but ill informed on this country 
south of Bireima, they remain in deeper darkness 
as to what may lie to west. The evil repute of the 
local coastal tribe, the Beni Yass, w^orse pirates even 
than the Jauasmi, has effectually deterred mariners 
from landing on the neighbouring Gulf shore, and 
travellers from essaying the land passage from Hasa 
to Oman. jMiles was informed, at Bireima, that be- 
tween that point and Hofuf stretches a level steppe- 
like tract which can be crossed by leisurely wayfarers 
in twenty-four marches; that water, brackish but 
drinkable, is plentiful enough, and only at one or two 
w^ells need even tw^o days' supply be drawn. There 
would appear to be no permanent settlements. 

This undulating gravelly steppe, roamed by a few 
nomads of miserable character, has, however, an in- 
terest for geographers independent of its poverty; 
for it seems possible that exploration of it might solve 
an important problem in Arabian hydrography. Miles 
heard that it is interrupted by a marshy saline tract 
which extends inland from the Gulf shore for sev- 
eral days' journey, and forms the boundarv between 
Oman and Nejd. This " Sabkhah," according to his 



EASTERN BORDERLANDS 233 

informants, is continuous with " Wady Yabrin," an 
oasis in the southern desert, known to the Moslem 
geographers as lying equidistant from Yemama and 
Hasa, and now placed by cartographers as far inland 
as the forty-eighth degree of longitude. We shall 
say more of it presently. It seems to be an extensive 
palm tract, now too malarious for permanent habi- 
tation, but visited at the time of date harvest by Aal 
Morrah Bedawins, who report that they have seen 
ruins of habitations and, after rain, coins lying on the 
surface of its soil. 

More than this, Miles heard that the great artery 
of southern Nejd, Wady Hanifa, falls into this saline 
tract, and so goes out, eventually, to the Gulf at Khor 
ed-Duan, which was perhaps once Gerra. I shall 
return to its hydrography in dealing with Nejd; but 
in the mean time call attention to the agreement be- 
tween Miles's information and the persistent state- 
ments of Moslem geographers, alluded to already in 
the first and third chapters, to the effect that the 
south centre of Arabia drains to the Persian Gulf by 
a great wady which they called " Aftan." Their 
hydrography had been generally condemned on the 
authority of Sadlier, Palgrave, and Pelly, the only 
Europeans who have seen with their own eyes the 
lie of the land in South Nejd ; but in view of Miles's 
report of the existence of a great receptacle of drain- 
age to southward, one may well reopen the question, 
asking whether waters which cannot flow directly east 
to the Gulf may not drain thither all the same by 



234 ARABIA 

making an elbow to southward through country yet 
unseen? In that case it is possible that the Hanifa 
waters are only a tributary of a much more extensive 
system which drains as much of southern Arabia as 
the Wady er-Rumma drains of northern Arabia. 

We pass out of the unknown tract at the twenty- 
fifth parallel. Here is a blessed interval in the 
undulating gravelly slopes where groups of great 
springs, some of them issuing at a high temperature, 
create the twin oases of Hasa and Katif, and certain 
lesser patches of verdure on the coasts of the Gulf of 
Bahrein and the peninsula of Katar. Those welling 
forth at the foot of a low escarpment, which defines 
not so much a ridge as the last elevated shelf of the 
long seaward slope of the inner plateau, at that low ele- 
vation of the hot Gulf shore, cause a tropical vegeta- 
tion to surround two settlements more considerable 
than any in inland Oman or Hadramaut. Hofuf and 
Mubariz seem to have some twenty thousand inhabi- 
tants apiece, and to be seats of a comparatively high 
civilisation and a humane luxurious society. 

The occurrence of this rich oasis of Hasa, nearly 
fifty miles long by fifteen in breadth and some forty 
miles inland, has determined the course of the main 
caravan track from the Gulf shore to Nejd, to which 
great division of the peninsula the Moslem geog- 
raphers reckoned it, and it has longest been politically 
attached. Accordingly, through Hasa have passed the 
few European explorers who have either left Central 
Arabia on the southeast or ventured into it from that 



EASTERN BORDERLANDS 235 

quarter. We have followed Sadlier in his unwilling 
course through Hofuf. Forty-four years later we find 
Gifford Palgrave coming down to it from Riad, The 
disguised Jesuit, exulting in his escape from Puritan 
Nejd, had more sympathy and more leisure to spare 
for Hasa than his predecessor; and his narrative, 
nowhere more full and vivid, shows him at no pains 
to conceal a semi-oriental leaning towards a people 
whose sole effective rule of life was hedonism. 

In the company of the luxurious townsmen of 
Hofuf and Mubariz Palgrave depicts himself quite 
at ease. He bathes, swims, wrestles, drinks coffee, 
chats, dines, smokes with them, fans their disaffection 
for their Wahabi lords, and glories in hoodwinking 
the official zealots. He joins picnic parties to points 
of interest; and when the cool hour of 'Asr comes 
" by common consent, prayers were supposed to have 
been said, and we remounted our side-saddles and 
galloped homewards." He reviews female beauty 
with the eye rather of Friar Tuck than " Father 
Michael Cohen." " In Hasa a decided improvement 
on this important point is agreeably evident to the 
traveller, . . . and he will be yet further delighted 
on finding his Calypsos much more conversible." 

In more serious vein withal Palgrave gives detailed 
and admirable descriptions of both the towns and the 
oasis about them, with which the little recorded by 
his predecessor Sadlier and his successors, Pelly and 
Zwemer, uniformly agrees. The last named, indeed, 
who went up to Hasa under Turkish protection in 



236 ARABIA 

October, 1893, found the " Syrian's " plan of Hofuf 
quite accurate enough after thirty years. Palgrave 
ascribed to the town twenty-four thousand inhabi- 
tants, — perhaps not too much, since Pelly estimated 
it, two years later, to be larger than Riad itself,^ — 
and twenty thousand to Mubariz, which Sadlier 
thought not inferior to the capital. On the details 
of life — houses and housekeeping, products and com- 
merce, custom and manners — he speaks with a note 
of intimacy rarely attained by a European in the 
east. In much of southern Nejd we must use Pal- 
grave as our authority because there is no other; in 
Hasa we use him in preference to all others. Were 
it not for him we should know so ill the character 
of the land and its people that its previous and sub- 
sequent history would be barely intelligible. How 
Hasa came to produce the rival system of al-Karmat, 
which all but prevailed against Islam; why both the 
Wahabi and the Ottoman rulers lusted after it, and 
one after the other found it a thorny possession, — 
to these and other questions Sadlier, Pelly, and 
Zwemer would supply no answer. 

After a sojourn, whose duration is not stated, Pal- 
grave and his Syrian companion resumed their way 
to the sea in the early winter of 1862, choosing the 
northern port of Katif, more distant but more con- 
siderable than Ajer. Their track must have been 
nearly that which Sadlier had followed, but perhaps 

1 Reinaud had thought it small in 1799, but he admits that many of 
the inhabitants had fled from the Wahabis ; and moreover we do not know 
his standard of size. He thought Deraiye small also, 




L. 



^ 



EASTERN BORDERLANDS izi 

more easterly and direct, since they were not under his 
necessity to visit a camp at the Rabia wells. Between 
the inland and the maritime oases they traversed a 
sandy and gravelly country well supplied with water, 
and evidently once settled, but now " nomadised " and 
neglected ; and on the fourth day, descending the last 
sandstone bluffs into the rank cane-brakes and heavy 
palm groves of Katif, they saw at last at their feet 

" the dead shallow flats of the bay. How different from 
the bright waters of the Mediterranean, all glitter and 
life, when we had bidden them farewell eight months 
before at Gaza! Like a leaden sheet, half ooze, half 
sedge, the muddy sea lay in view, waveless, motion- 
less. . . . Within this hollow rest the shallow waters 
of the Gulf; when full tide creeps in they present the 
delusive appearance of calm depth, but at ebb reveal in- 
numerable shoals, islets, tufts of sea plants and banks 
of sand, with narrow winding channels between, full 
of mud and slime." 

Two years later Colonel Lewis Pelly, British resi- 
dent at Bushire, who had gone up to Riad from 
Koweit, followed Palgrave's track on his return as 
far as Hofuf, but thence made straight for the sea at 
the barren village of Ajer. Neither he nor Zwemer, 
who landed where he had embarked, added materially 
to their predecessor's account of Hasa. The last- 
named is the only western who has seen this region 
since the great political change of 187 1. In that year 
Midhat, Pasha of Baghdad, was invited to invade 
Nejd by 'Abd- Allah, a defeated claimant to the throne 



238 ARABIA 

of Riad, who had been disappointed of British sup- 
port. With the co-operation of the Sheikh of Koweit 
Midhat made his attempt by way of Hofuf, and got 
no farther than its oasis, not daring to enter the 
sand belt in the face of the Nejdean forces. The Turk 
contented himself with constituting a new vilayat, of 
which he held in fact only the littoral as far south as 
Katar and the single inland oasis of Hasa, and con- 
ferring on 'Abd- Allah the vain title of " Kaimmakam 
of Nejd." So far as it went, however, his conquest has 
proved definitive, despite more than one revolt of Hasa. 
But so hated is the Turk, alike by the old Carmathian 
population and the remnant of the coastal Wahabis, 
that he has had to maintain a state of siege in the 
oasis ever since, and has been less willing to admit 
Europeans even than in Yemen. He means to stay. 
Small, isolated, and expensive a possession though 
Hasa be, it commands the best road to two districts 
of Arabia on which the caliph's eyes have long been 
fixed, Oman and Nejd. 

The gravelly steppe, falling in long undulations, 
whose ridges run north by south to a flat uninhabited 
coast, reappears as the Hasa waters run dry in the 
sandSi Very little is known about it, and there is very 
little to know, till the limit of Arabia be passed and 
the Euphratean delta reached. The only European 
who has seen its whole breadth at any point between 
Katif and Koweit is Pelly, who reported all that lay 
right and left of the track taken by his party in 1865 
as absolutely featureless and almost waterless. In the 



EASTERN BORDERLANDS 239 

season of his journey, the month of February, there 
was to be seen a pale and rare desert herbage, due to 
recent rains, but neither settlement of any kind, nor 
tree. Hardly a tent of Bedawins, Beni Khalid, Aal 
Morrah, or Ajman seems to be pitched upon this no 
man's land, which none desires. The steppe ends on 
the west in certain sandstone billows, the first ridges 
of the narrow wasted tract, whose sands prolong those 
of the southern desert, and all but join the sands of 
the northern Nafiid. 

The shores of this miserable steppe are like to it, 
— without well-marked outfalls of wadys, without 
any but scarce and brackish water, and without per- 
manent habitations for nearly three degrees of lati- 
tude; over all the interval, that is, between Katif and 
Koweit. Change comes with the deep bay, on whose 
southern shore the latter town is built. Here a con- 
siderable palm oasis extends for some short space in- 
land up the course of a broad but shallow wady bed, 
which seems to be one outfall of the great drain of 
North Arabia, the Wady er-Rumma. Except after 
the greatest storms, no water runs therein above 
ground, but it can always be raised sweet and good 
from a few feet below the surface. This abundance 
of well-water, the palm oasis, and the sheltered bay 
opening on the Gulf, all found in a healthy desert tract 
within a long day's march of the nearest outfall of the 
Mesopotamian waters, have drawn the eyes of Eu- 
phratean promoters to Koweit, ever since the first 
projection of trans-Asiatic railway schemes. The 



240 ARABIA 

prosperous little Bedawin town bids fair some day to 
be the scene of a notable conflict (or compromise) be- 
tween western rivals in the east, and to matter more 
to Europe than any other spot in Arabia except, per- 
haps, Aden. And not only to Europe. For this oasis 
is the gate of Arabia on the northeast, and the pos- 
session of its key will alone give the Caliph easy access 
not only to his coastal province of Nejd, but to the 
great internal region, more properly so named, which 
he covets for its geographical relation to his precious 
Hijaz. When the Sheikh of Koweit declared for 
Midhat in 1871 he received a pledge that his town 
should enjoy administrative autonomy, but as an 
Ottoman kaza, in which he accepted for himself 
and his heirs the position of hereditary Kdimmakdm. 
Turkey, therefore, is not without such rights to 
Koweit as in the comity of nations are usually allowed 
to be paramount and exclusive. It remains to be seen 
if she can assert them, or what price she may be able 
to exact for their possible cession to a Christian power. 



EASTERN BORDERLANDS 241 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Aucher Eloy, Relation de Voyages en Orient, edited by the Comte de 

Jaubert (Paris, 1843). 
S. B. Miles, in G.J., 1896, p. 522, and 1901, p. 465, and also in Journal 

of the R. Society of Bengal, vol. xlvi., i., p. 41. 
S. M. Zwemer, in G. J., 1902, p. 54. On Major Cox's journey, see note 

in G.J., 1902, p. 452. 
W. G. Palgrave, Central and Eastern Arabia, vol. ii., chaps, xii. and foil. 
Lewis Felly, in/. R. G. S., 1866, p. 169. Cf. Proceedings, 1864-65, p. 295, 

and/ R. G. S., 1865, p. 178. 



16 



CHAPTER XI 

THE CENTRAL NORTH 

NOW to the heart of Arabia, to broader plains, 
and to records of adventure that have won, 
or deserved, more fame. We have taken no ac- 
count of exploration in Nejd since 1850, but once 
or twice, in treating of the borderlands of the penin- 
sula since that date, have caught a passing glimpse 
of travellers coming down or going up, travellers 
of wide renown, Palgrave, Doughty, Huber. All 
European explorers, since Sadlier, have attacked the 
centre of Arabia from the north. From the north, 
then, we too shall re-enter it, and passing southward, 
consider last of all that vast core of South Arabia 
which no western eye has seen, and perhaps, in great 
part, no foot of man has trod. 

We have traced Wallin's route across the great 
Nafud sands, which lie between Arabia and the con- 
tinental mass of Asia, a terrible limbo guarding the 
landward gates. Had the Swedish pioneer told the 
story of his journeys more promptly, more fully, with 
less learning and through a medium of wider appeal, he 
would probably have had more immediate followers, 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 243 

and certainly have robbed one follower in particular 
of much of his opportunity for creating a great sen- 
sation. For when Wallin left northern Nejd for the 
last time, he had not only proved the practicability 
of the Nafijd passage, but he had discovered that re- 
markable political organisation of Bedawin chivalry, 
newly constituted in Jabal Shammar, to see which 
has been the main inducement to the explorers of 
Central Arabia since Palgrave. At the death of 
'Abd- Allah ibn Rashid, in 1847, the Shammar do- 
minion was firmly established, and only waiting for 
its expansion by successors worthy of the founder 
of the family fortunes. But while Wallin said very 
little of the Nafud, the more abundant detail that 
he related concerning the Emirate of Hail was ob- 
scurely and unattractively expressed. Accordingly, 
when fifteen years later another European reached 
Jabal Shammar, he found (and left) more points 
of North Arabian geography unsettled than might 
have been looked for where an explorer of Wal- 
lin's calibre had already passed ; and his narrative 
was destined to create the stir of a revelation. There 
is reason to think that when this man started he was 
not better aware of his predecessor's discoveries 
than the public, although he learned of them ere 
setting to work to write his own story. Certainly he 
did not go into Arabia expressly to test or enlarge 
them, but for reasons wholly independent of, though 
possibly not altogether unlike, those which led to 
Wallin's adventure. 



244 ARABIA 

Late in July, 1862, two Syrian strangers, whether 
merchants or leeches or of both trades, alighted before 
the castle of Hail, and, amid a curious throng, awaited 
the prince's pleasure. They were styled Salim Abu 
Mahmud al-Ays and Barakat ash-Shami. If their 
true purpose in coming thither became known eventu- 
ally to Emir Talal (as the narrative of the first-named 
states), to us it is not certainly known at this day. 
But we can assert a fact which probably was never 
candidly explained to the Shammar ruler; namely, 
that while the lesser traveller was much what he 
professed to be, a Damascene Syrian, the chief was 
an Englishman of Hebrew extraction on the father's 
side, William Gifford Palgrave, once an officer in the 
Indian army, now a Jesuit priest on the mission es- 
tablishment at Zahleh in the Lebanon. 

Why was he come to Hail? Before telling the 
most sensational story of Arabian adventure ever 
told, he himself made a statement on the matter : — 

" Readers may perhaps be desirous to learn what was 
the special object and what the determining circumstance 
of the journey now before them. The hope of doing 
something towards the permanent social good of these 
wide regions ; the desire of bringing the stagnant waters 
of Eastern life into contact with the quickening stream 
of European progress ; perhaps a natural curiosity to 
know the yet unknown, and the restlessness of enter- 
prise not rare in Englishmen, — these were the princi- 
pal motives. The author may add that at the time of 
the undertaking he was in connection with the Order 
of Jesuits, — an Order well known in the annals of 




William Gifford Palgrave 

Medallion by Woollier 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 245 

philanthropic daring; he has also gratefully to ac- 
knowledge that the necessary funds were furnished by 
the liberality of the present Emperor of the French." 

But Palgrave was not unaccustomed to use words 
to conceal thought. We may be sure that when he 
gave to Talal and his chief henchman in Hail " a 
brief but clear a ount of the circumstances and ob- 
ject of the jouri.^y, whence and whither, what we 
desired and expected," he said nothing about quicken- 
ing the stagnant waters of Orientalism. The Sham- 
mar Emir finally replied, " Return in whatever fashion 
you may, . . . your word shall pass here as law ; and 
whatever you may wish to see done shall be exactly 
complied with throughout the limits of my govern- 
ment ; " and his henchman, Zamil, declared himself 
"an enthusiastic participator" in the strangers' views. 
Were those Wahabi leaders pledging themselves to 
the support of Jesuit missions in Nejd from mo- 
tives of philanthropy? And why did the Emperor 
of the French so liberally supply the necessary 
funds ? 

We may not hope to read the secrets of either the 
Jesuit College or the Tuileries, but we may recall 
certain facts which suggest a working hypothesis. 
The great massacres in the Lebanon and Damascus 
took place in i860, and they were followed by 
European intervention on behalf of the Syrian Chris- 
tians, in which the Emperor, Napoleon III., contrived 
to have the only practical share by despatching an 
expeditionary force to Beirut without waiting for 



246 ARABIA 

his colleagues. Vigorous measures taken by the Otto- 
man government, under French and British pressure, 
quickly removed all further danger of outbreak; but 
the Emperor's troops showed no sign of withdrawing 
until Lord Palmerston adopted an attitude which 
showed clearly that he at any rate believed their stay 
to have another purpose than the protection of Chris- 
tian life and property. Indeed, it is now no longer 
questioned that Napoleon hoped at that time either 
to establish an effective French occupation of Syria, 
or to secure the country for his client, the Egyptian 
Viceroy, in whose differences with the suzerain Otto- 
man power he was not unconcerned. 

On the morrow of the Damascene massacres 
Napoleon summoned to Paris the Jesuit Palgrave, 
who had been resident for some years in Syria, under 
the style and title of " Father Michael," to which 
Cohen, the original Hebrew surname of his family, 
seems to have been commonly added. Closely con- 
nected ever since his conversion with the French 
branch of the Society of Jesus, and being of singu- 
larly Protean disposition, Palgrave had been con- 
spicuous for sympathies not those of his particular 
nationality. Endowed with all the linguistic facility 
of a Jew, and a considerable share of the Near Eastern 
character, he presented himself to the Emperor as a 
likely envoy to Arab societies. He was sent back to 
Damascus in 1862, chose one of the native teachers 
at the Zahleh college, Barakat Jurayjuray, for a trusty 
comrade, went with him into Galilee, and there as- 



THE CENTRAL NORTH ^47 

sumed disguise. The pair passed on by Gaza to 
Maan, and set their faces for Jaiif and Hail. 

Their mission was probably religious only inas- 
much as the interests of the Jesuit College in the 
east were at this period bound up with the political 
fortunes of France. " Father Michael " had little in 
him of the apostolic nature, and we can hardly credit 
one who renounced his Order and his Church almost 
immediately after his return from Arabia, and within 
five years was writing of both in virulent scorn/ with 
daring all things as a purely spiritual pioneer. It is 
much more probable that his main commission was 
to further some political plan. As we have seen in 
considering Wallin's object, the Egyptian policy had 
already concerned itself with Nejd; nor were Pal- 
grave's the first overtures to be made to a Nejdean 
prince on behalf of France, as Colonel Pelly would 
learn presently from the Emir Fay sal. By 1862 the 
certainty that the Suez Canal would be made was 
increasing immensely the interest of France and 
Egypt in Arabia ; ' and to secure the exclusive friend- 
ship of the one effective power in the lands on the 
east of the Red Sea had become almost as obviously 
desirable to Napoleon as to establish a French or 
French-Egyptian domination in Syria. 

1 See his Essays on Eastern Questions (1870), wherein he takes 
occasion to rail at the Pope, the Seminarists of St. Sulpice, and the " co- 
lossal hagiolatry of Catholic Christians." He says of Protestantism that 
" it shocks Mahometan taste less than the tawdry finery and pious sen- 
suality of the Catholic system "! 

2 See Eutincc. Tai^buch, etc., p. 169, for Emir Talal's relations with 
Egypt about this time. 



248 ARABIA 

Beyond this suggestion we can hardly go. The 
precise terms of Palgrave's commission will perhaps 
never be known. It led to nothing in the end; for 
the Suez Canal was hardly opened to shipping ere the 
German guns had rudely altered the weight of France 
in the world's balance. But of the general nature of 
his mission we need not doubt more than his contem- 
poraries doubted. On his return Palgrave met with a 
cold reception from his countrymen; and the British 
Geographical Society, while it listened to his story, 
left its sister association in Paris to vote honours to 
the first man who had crossed Central Arabia from 
north to south. 

I have dealt thus at length with Palgrave's com- 
mission to prepare readers for the adoption of a criti- 
cal attitude towards his narrative. It is necessary to 
make it clear that this explorer did not go to Arabia 
in the interests of science, nor with that scientific 
conscience which would have made him note all that 
he saw and heard, and esteem accuracy of statement 
his first obligation. But he did go in another in- 
terest, which was bound to give him a certain bias. 
Palgrave stated that he lost many papers through 
his shipwreck on the coast of Oman at the end of 
his journey; but we may doubt if among the budget 
were many of scientific nature. In default of notes 
he was quite content with recollections of impres- 
sions, and not concerned to inform his readers of 
the precise basis on which any assertion or inference 
might rest. Indeed, his book strikes a reader as not 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 249 

having been contemplated at starting by its author 
any more than by the Society of Jesus, which subse- 
quently protested against its appearance without offi- 
cial sanction.^ 

An obvious alternative explanation of his many 
exaggerations, omissions, and misstatements, which 
has found some favour with the " Higher Critics," 
is certainly wrong. Palgrave without doubt made 
the journey which he described. Of his successors 
in Nejd, none has expressed any misgiving as to 
the authenticity of his visit, and more than one has 
borne express testimony that the accuracy of his 
record on certain points is such that none but an 
eye-witness could have penned it. Thus the latest of 
all. Baron Nolde, mentions the calumny, only to refute 
it as an " unberichtigt so doch haiifig vorgebrachter 
Einwand." An explorer of much greater authority, 
C. M. Doughty, in a letter to the present writer, 
implied that he had no doubt of his predecessor, and 
that he understood certain remarks made to himself 
in Hail to refer probably to Palgrave.^ He adds: 
" El Khennayny said to me in Aneyza something like 
this : * How can you go about in such a lawless 
land calling yourself openly a Nasrany and Ingleysy? 
Such a one, [name I cannot recall], did not so when he 

1 This view, at which I arrived independently, I find to be also sub- 
stantially Mr. Wilfrid Blunt's, who in a letter to me speaks strongly of 
the absurdity of Palgrave's account of the Arab breeds of horses, in 
which he professed particular interest. Mr. Blunt adds : " Palgrave's 
chapter on horses is just such as might have been written as an after- 
thought to supply an important omission in his account of the country." 

' See Arabia Deserta, i. pp. 589, 604. 



250 ARABIA 

journeyed through the country.' " Lastly, Mr. Wil- 
frid Blunt writes : " I cannot doubt that Palgrave 
really made the journey narrated in his book. . . . 
I can bear testimony to his description of social life 
in Nejd as being a faithful picture of what I saw." 
It need only be added that the correspondence of 
Palgrave's description of Nejdean oasis society with 
Doughty's is of the closest. And so let all doubt be 
dismissed. 

The pair of Syrian leeches had come from Maan 
by Wallin's route, halting some three weeks in Jauf 
for the practice of their assumed profession. Pal- 
grave's account of the main features of the oasis 
tallies with his predecessor's, but is designed to be 
more descriptive and more impressive. He seems de- 
termined to make the most and the best of every- 
thing. The oasis lengthens itself to seventy miles, 
and its population exceeds the highest estimate of 
any other traveller by as much again. The gardens, 
which would strike the Blunts as small and mean, 
are in his eyes famous, superior to any in Nejd or 
Hijaz; the inhabitants, condemned by Wallin for 
evil-looking churls,^ are fine men in aspect and bear- 
ing. We shall find the same " megalomania " when 
Palgrave has passed the Nafud — nay, in the Nafud 
itself, his " vast sea of fire," whose " red-hot waves," 
running north by south, he states, swell two hundred 
or three hundred feet in average height. So on enter- 
ing Jabal Shammar our traveller allows two thousand 

1 The latest visitor, the missionary Forder, bears out Wallin. 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 251 

four hundred inhabitants to Lakeita, where Wallin 
saw but one hundred and twenty houses; and twenty 
thousand to Hail, which has at this day scarcely more 
than the half, and in the second year after Palgrave's 
visit was reported by Guarmani to hold but seven 
thousand five hundred souls. 

Fanciful though it be, Palgrave's description of 
the Nafud is, however, not without its value, if only 
because he was the first European to remark the 
horseshoe pits, which form the most famous, but 
worst understood, feature of these deep sands. These 
his Bedawins called by the name falj, the word com- 
monly used for the shafts sunk, as already described 
in Oman, to meet those subterranean galleries, along 
which streams are conducted for purposes of irriga- 
tion, after the Persian manner. But as these Nafud 
pits have been investigated better by Palgrave's suc- 
cessors, we must introduce other explorers before 
discussing the problems of the Nafud, or passing on 
with the " Syrians " to Jabal Shammar. 

Of Palgrave's immediate follower. Carlo Guarmani, 
we need say no more at present than that, though he 
returned across the Nafud from Jubbe to Jauf in 1864, 
it is not of that final stage of his journey in Nejd 
that he has left a detailed account. Travelling very 
fast, with a string of horses, mainly by night, and in 
ignorance of his predecessor's experiences, he seems 
to have failed to see anything worth note on the 
sands. Fourteen years later came witnesses more 
observant. Within the space of a few months the 



252 ARABIA 

Nafud was crossed on Palgrave's line by two Euro- 
pean parties bound for Hail, where the Emir Talal 
was now dead and a stronger than he sat in the seat of 
power, — Muhammad, his nephew, perhaps the ablest 
Arab of his century. The fame of the stern peace 
which this prince maintained in all North Arabia, and 
of his liberality of opinion, encouraged two Europeans 
to venture into his territories in thin disguise, and 
three others in no disguise at all. 

The first was the French Alsatian, Charles Huber, 
of tragic memory. Inured to the ways of Arabs by 
residence in Syria, and evidently congenial to their 
society, he was commissioned by the Ministry of 
Public Instruction to explore Nejd, so far as he 
might go, in the general interests of science, and 
doubtless the particular interests of his nationality. 
By training a naturalist, circumstances made of him 
an archaeologist. He came down to Jauf from 
Damascus by way of Bosra and Kaf late in May, 
1878, and on June i set out for Hail. The sand 
passage from the Shakik wells to Jubbe was made, 
despite the great heat of the season, in seventy-six 
hours, eleven less than Wallin spent on the same 
track with his weak beasts. Palgrave had crossed 
in eighty-five hours; Guarmani in no more than 
fifty. 

Huber found Muhammad ibn Rashid in camp at 
Umm el-Dulbhan on the desert edge, was received 
into his friendship after a flimsy pretence of repeat- 
ing the Moslem profession of faith, and retained his 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 253 

confidence to the bitter end. The Alsatian was to 
cross the Nafiid again in the unusually rainy October 
of 1883, this time in the company of the Strasburg 
Orientalist, Julius Euting, who had been encouraged 
to join his fellow-provincial by the King of Wiirtem- 
berg and General von Manteuffel, in order that the an- 
cient inscribed monuments, seen by Huber on his first 
journey, might be recorded by a scholar more ex- 
pert in Semitic epigraphy. Concerning this passage 
we have only rough notes by Huber, edited by others 
after his murder in the following year; but Euting 
has published a connected account. 

The other party, which ventured across the Nafud 
a few months later than Ruber's first crossing, re- 
mains unique among exploring parties in Arabia; for 
not only did it contain a European lady, but it jour- 
neyed for no express scientific, commercial, or politi- 
cal end, but rather from a romantic curiosity and 
imaginative sympathy with Bedawin society. Wilfrid 
Scawen Blunt, diplomatist and poet, and his wife, 
granddaughter of the poet Byron, both of whom 
had been initiated into desert life four years earlier 
among the Anaze and Shammar tribesmen of the 
Hamad and Mesopotamian steppes, conceived a de- 
sire to see the head and centre of the purest Arab 
breeds of humanity and horseflesh. By the help of a 
certain chivalrous relation, formed with a noble Arab 
family of the Palmyrene oasis which was sprung origi- 
nally from Hasa, the journey was made possible ; and 
in quest of a bride for his blood-brother, a young 



254 ARABIA 

scion of the Tadmor house, Blunt came to Jauf about 
the New Year 1879. 

The betrothal took place there, but nevertheless the 
party held on south across the sands, and the Blunts 
boldly approached the Emir of the Shammar under 
their true colours, as persons of noble quality in 
Europe desirous to greet the noble house of Rashid. 
Muhammad, not irresponsive, extended a somewhat 
embarrassed and uncertain courtesy. He had to 
reckon with the Chauvinism and latent Wahabism of 
a section of his townsmen, excited by successive in- 
trusions of Franks within their inviolate walls,^ and 
the novel spectacle of a Frankish woman. Fortu- 
nately the visit was not prolonged, and the last fare- 
wells were exchanged with sufficient good-will. 

Romantic as were the conception and accomplish- 
ment of this adventure, and unscientific as may have 
been the pretensions of the adventurers, their actual 
narrative will bear comparison with any other, con- 
cerned with the same ground, for sobriety and accu- 
racy, as well as for observation and sympathy. Both 
the journal written by Lady Anne Blunt, and the 
notes added by her husband, are much more valuable 
contributions to geographical science than they claim 
to be, and cannot be neglected even where such close 
observers of Arab life as Palgrave, Guarmani, and 
Doughty have recorded their experiences, or explorers 

1 They had lately seen Doughty as well as Huber, and it is an open 
question if they had not by this time learned the true character of both 
Palgrave and Guarmani, 




Wilfrid Scawen Blunt 

Frmn an original oil painting by Molony 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 255 

have passed as well equipped as Wallin, Huber, and 
Euting. 

Since 1883 only one European has crossed the 
northern sands to our knowledge ; ^ namely, a Ger- 
man, Edward Nolde, who set out from Damascus 
with a great retinue in January, 1893, to visit the 
Emir Muhammad. He seems to have been a rest- 
less, somewhat fantastic soldier of fortune, who sought 
one excitement after another, till the end came by 
his own hand in London in 1895 ; and his power 
and his will to observe what geographers desire, were 
not great. The interest of his posthumous narrative 
lies mainly in its historical record of political changes 
that had come to pass in the Emir's kingdom, espe- 
cially in the latter's relations to divers great Bedawin 
stocks, and the power of Riad. Since Nolde pene- 
trated a little way even into South Nejd, beyond 
Kasim, we shall speak of him again; but here make 
note that he alone crossed the Nafiid by a track other 
than that which makes for Jubbe. His way diverged 
to eastward after entering the sands, and held more 
directly southeastward for Hail, reaching water again, 
after about one hundred and eighty miles, at Hai- 
yanie, a desert fort of the Emir's, where ancient 
wells have been sunk to great depths through solid 
rock. This fort is now a centre for the protection 
and control of the tributary Bedawins, who drive 
their herds on the Nafud in springtime. 

1 A. Forder, a Kerak missionary, went to Jauf in 1901, but no farther 
{G.y., December, 1902. C/. With the Arabs, etc., London, 1902). 



256 ARABIA 

These are all the eye-witnesses that we can call for 
the Nafud, and they testify at first hand to no more 
than the waist of it. Other tracks strike across it, 
notably a direct one from Jauf to the oasis of Teima, 
whereon Doughty gives the stations; but this neither 
he nor any other European has followed. We have no 
choice but to infer the nature of nine-tenths of this 
great sand tract, which covers about seven degrees of 
longitude by four of latitude, from the one-tenth seen. 

When approached either from north or south, the 
Nafijd sands appear to rise abruptly above the harder 
bordering steppes, whose calcareous floor is continued 
beneath them. Blunt was clear that this floor slopes 
upward all the way from Jauf to Jabal Shammar, 
though the sandy mass upon it may fall away again 
slightly from the centre of the Naffid. Euting reck- 
oned the highest dune at nine hundred and sixty 
metres above sea-level. Doughty saw the Nafud edge 
stand up like a range of white hummocky hills from 
the steppe to east of Teima. Whether there be also 
a rise from east to west is not ascertained, but it is 
probable there is. The deepest beds of sand, be- 
tween two hundred and three hundred feet thick, 
are in the southern and western parts. Nolde testifies 
that farther eastward the dunes become less high, and 
the whole surface more plain, an observation which 
is supported by the witness of those who have skirted 
the eastern limit on their way from Jabal Shammar 
to the Euphrates valley, and found the sandy tracts 
very thin and intermittent. 




fq ■= 



< ° 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 257 

As to the general relief of the sand surface testi- 
mony in the main agrees. All travellers have been 
aware of long undulations, whose axes lie north by 
south ; but they have varied much as to the average 
interval between trough and ridge. Perhaps one 
L. mdred feet is nearly the normal difference of level. 
The nature of the sand is not the same in all parts. 
While everywhere singularly pure from argillaceous 
or calcareous admixture, it is much heavier and rud- 
dier in the centre than on the northern or southern 
fringes. Euting says the northern Nafud is like a 
snow-field ; and Doughty saw the southern dunes 
white under the sun. Unlike the border sands, the 
central particles appear to drift but little. It is not 
a rainless tract. Huber saw pools in October, and 
Nolde experienced even a snowfall on February 2d; 
but there is no running surface water, and no 
water-worn channels are visible. Nevertheless the 
sand, especially the heavier red variety, must retain 
a good deal of moisture, for it is fairly well clothed 
with desert vegetation, not all of merely annual 
growth. Huber, after reading Palgrave's lurid de- 
scription, was agreeably surprised by its greenness 
even in June; while Blunt, who observed that the 
falj sides were generally better clad than most other 
parts, says of the Nafud as a whole that it 

" solved for him the mystery of horse-breeding in Cen- 
tral Arabia. In the hard desert there is nothing a horse 
can eat, but here there is plenty. The Nefud accounts 
for everything. Instead of being the terrible place it 

17 



258 ARABIA 

has been described by the few travellers who have seen 
it, it is in reality the home of the Bedouins during a 
great part of the year." 

Nolde found enormous herds, tended by Syrian 
Roala, ranging about Haiyanie, and other explorers 
have been surprised by the sight of Bedawin parties 
moving about the waste, and evidently for the nonce 
resident within it. Their milch camels are said to 
go without water for some three weeks when the 
desert herbage is fresh, as against the four or five 
days, which is their extreme period of abstinence, 
when the herbage is withered; and this fact explains 
the confidence of Bedawins in passing this desert at 
all points and remaining at great distance from wells. 
Doughty expressed his belief that even the Southern 
Desert of Arabia might be crossed after their manner 
with camels in full milk. The presence of a consid- 
erable fauna, ranging from antelopes to rats, in the 
midway sands has been already mentioned. Most 
travellers have recorded, and Doughty with full 
agreement, the Bedawin statement that these animals 
never drink. 

Two questions have been much debated in regard 
to the Nafud. The first regards the origin of its 
vast accumulation of sands; the second that of the 
falj pits, which occur in its deeper tracts. These 
problems are perhaps not altogether unconnected. 

The distinction of the two kinds of sand observed 
in the Nafud must be recalled. The light yellowish- 
white particles, which drift easily, may have come 




u 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 259 

from a much greater distance than the heavy red 
ones. When it is noted that these last seem to form 
a uniform tract in the centre of the Nafiid, almost mo- 
tionless, and interrupted on the one well-known track 
by two jutting crags of sandstone so dark and red 
as to have been miscalled granite by Palgrave, the 
natural inference suggests itself that the red grains 
are the perished remnant of a bed of sandstone which 
overlies the limestones in the Nafiid region itself; 
and it is probable that further exploration will con- 
firm Euting's statement that this stratum is not in- 
frequently emergent in the form of flat-topped hills. 
Whence the lighter grains have come seems to be 
indicated by Doughty's observations in the sandstone 
region to west and southwest, which has been partly 
overflowed by lavas. He has stated ^ that the eruptive 
matter now forms great platforms, whose core is of 
sandstone continuous with that on the surface of 
the lower plains between and around the lava tracts. 
That is to say, the lava caps have preserved from de- 
nudation a part of the sandstone plains, and by main- 
taining those parts at the level they had at the epoch 
of the eruption, supplied a remarkable proof of the 
immense wasting that has taken place elsewhere. A 
sufficient bulk of sand particles has evidently been set 
free from this quarter, and similarly from all sandstone 
surfaces of the Arabian peninsula, by the disintegrating 
forces of nature, to account for all its moving deserts. 

^ Both in his book and in the paper read to the Geographical Society 
on Nov. 26, 1883. 



26o ARABIA 

A large sandstone tract occurs to west of the 
Nafud, where rise the rounded hills of Jabal Shera. 
The prevailing winds (despite Blunt' s authority, here 
for once at fault) are stated by the majority of 
travellers in North Arabia to blow from west and 
southwest ; ^ and it has been observed already that 
the sands lie thinner on the north and east of the 
NafM than on its west and south. Jabal Shera, then, 
whose rocks, says Doughty, " resemble the wasting 
sandstone mountains of Sinai," with its southward 
continuation, is in all likelihood the parent of the 
moving sands of the Nafud. 

Remains the falj problem. Much of the mystery 
that has been made of these great horseshoe pits, 
which in a few, but very rare cases, descend to the 
hard underlying floor of the Nafud, has been due to 
imperfect observation and hasty generalisation from a 
few of the more conspicuous examples seen. They 
are not peculiar to this desert, but appear to be found 
in all Arabian sands of considerable depth. There is 
reason to think single pits are not necessarily sta- 
tionary in one place, or permanent; for Huber says, 
despite what the Bedawins asserted to himself, to 
Euting, and to Blunt, that he saw with his own eyes 
the sites of filled-up pits, and other pits in process of 
being filled. Nor are they always disposed in the 
irregular strings observed by Blunt. They do, how- 

1 Cf. Mr. E. A. Floyer's letter to Mr. Vaughan Cornish on the sand 
movements near El Arish {G./., May, 1898). He notes that the Suez 
Canal has caused a belt of about ten miles' breadth to be clear of 
drift-sand. 







^M^jjjm^ 



Julius* Euting 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 261 

ever, usually present an abrupt slope to west and an 
easy slope to east; and they have an invariable and 
significant companion on the crest of their steeps, 
acutely remarked by the Blunts ; namely, a mound or 
dune, larger or smaller, but of white complexion, 
whatever the general colour of the particles be in the 
particular part of the Nafud. Consideration of this 
feature carries irresistible conviction that the cause 
of the falj is, after all, wind, as the Blunts thought 
at first ; ^ and that we are confronted by extraordi- 
nary effects of the ordinary drifting process, which 
works a sand surface into dunes alternating with 
hollows, scooped by eddies of wind. The two theories 
previously put forward, which both ascribed the phe- 
nomenon to the slipping of bottom-sand, as in an 
hourglass, whether through the action of ground- 
water (according to Blunt), or the step-like inequality 
of the floor (in the opinion of Euting), are rendered 
less probable than they seemed at one time to be by the 
observations above enumerated, which show that the 
pits are neither peculiar to the locality nor invariable 
and regular in their disposition. These theories more- 
over do not account in any way for the attendant 
dune. 

To wind, then, we look, and with Walther hold 
that " die Fuldjes im grunde genommen nicht anderes 
sind als gekrummte Diinen." In the first instance 
westerly winds have scooped sand, and, wherever 

^ See J. Walther, Z>te Denudation in der Wuste, in Abhandl. der 
math. phys. Classe der K. Sachs. Gesellschaft der Wissenscha/ten, xvi. p. 509. 



262 ARABIA 

checked by such an obstacle as a large bush, piled it into 
a mound which, according to the invariable rule dem- 
onstrated lately by Mr. Vaughan Cornish to the Royal 
Geographical Society, had a long slope on the wind- 
ward side, while its lee side was abrupt. Beyond it 
the scooping process began afresh, and if a new ob- 
stacle was met with and a second dune formed, a 
horseshoe pit half excavated, and further deepened 
in appearance by its comparative relation to the two 
dunes on each hand of it, came into being. The 
dune thereafter tended to diminish or move forward, 
according to a well known law of sand drift; but 
the scour of the wind round its sides may long have 
kept the hollow clear, and even deepened it. 

Winds of ordinary force, however, could hardly 
have piled up the heavier particles of the central 
NafiJd, or scoured the lee hollows to the great depth 
occasionally observed. It is probable, therefore, that, 
where these dunes and pits occur in the red sand, they 
have been formed by electric storms of exceptional vio- 
lence, such as occur but rarely. Once made, these pits 
would not be sensibly affected by the ordinary winds 
of normal seasons, and might long remain with so 
little apparent change as to be regarded by the short 
memories of Bedawins as having always existed, and 
to come to be used for camping-grounds by several 
generations. But the lighter white sands, which al- 
ways blow thinly over the surface of the heavier red 
ground, would cloak the dunes on their windward 
side, while being scoured out of the lee hollows, and 



THE CENTRAL NORTH 263 

so justify the Blunts in their observation that a white 
mound accompanies a red falj. 

Such seems to be the explanation generally appli- 
cable to this phenomenon of the Nafud. The peculi- 
arities of the wind action in certain of its localities 
will be better understood some day (as Walther re- 
marks) when the movement of heavy grains has been 
subjected to the same study as has been devoted to 
that of lighter sands; and (we may add) when more 
study has been given also to the electrical forces, which 
seem to play a part in the movement of all kinds of 
sand alike. 



264 ARABIA 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

W. G. Palgrave, Central anJ Eastern Arabia, 2 vols. (London, 1865). Cf. 
J. R. G. S., xxxiv. p. Ill, and Proceedings, viii. pp. 63, 97, 103; 
also EncydopcBiiia Britannica, 9th ed., s. v. Arabia. For Burton's 
view of Palgrave, see Preface to 3d ed.. Personal Narrative of a Pil- 
grimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah. 

C. Huber, Voyage dans V Arable Centrale in Bulletin de la SocietS de Geogra- 
phie, vii"° serie, vol. 5, pp. 304, 468 ; vol. 6, p. 92, and Jou7-fial d'ttn 
Voyage en Arable, published by the Asiatic and Geographical Socie- 
ties of Paris in 1S91. 

J. Euting, Tagbuch einer Reise in Inner-arabien, th. i. (Leyden, 1896). The 
second part has not appeared. 

Lady Anne Blunt, A Pilgrimage to Nejd, 2 vols. (London, 1881), with 
appendices by W. S. Blunt. 

E. Nolde, Reise nach Ifinerarabien, etc. (Brunswick, 1S95). 



CHAPTER XII 

THE CENTRE 

THESE adventurers came through the Nafud 
unscathed; and all but one found relief near 
the southern edge of the sands at the oasis of Jubbe, 
where a ridge of hard sandstone to south and west 
shelters a small calcareous depression from the drifting 
sands, and collects enough rainfall to supply wells. A 
long march to south of it the sand gives place abruptly 
to granitic gravel, and the traveller sees before him 
the high plateau of Jabal Shammar, with the serrated 
granites of Aja in the foreground. 

Two other Europeans had come to Jabal Shammar 
by other roads before any of those whose course we 
have already traced, except Wallin and Palgrave. Of 
this pair one is to be rated first among adventurers in 
Arabia, by reason of the daring of his feat, the quality 
of his observation, and the pregnant fidelity of his 
narrative ; but the earlier and less remarkable has left 
a name worthy of high honour. His journey followed 
closely on Palgrave's, and was undoubtedly, to some 
extent, an outcome of it, though the traveller him- 
self seems to have known little or nothing of his 
predecessor. 



266 ARABIA 

What impression in regard to other matters Pal- 
grave made on his imperial patron is uncertain; 
but, at any rate, his report on the Nejdean horse, 
fanciful though it was, led to immediate action. In 
September, 1863, a Levantine Italian, Carlo Guar- 
mani, then or formerly consular agent for the King 
of Prussia at Jerusalem, and known, since his expedi- 
tion to Jauf in 1851, to be able and willing to assume 
disguise in Arab lands, received a summons to Paris. 
This was followed by a further mandate to Turin; 
and, in the event he returned to Jerusalem, intrusted 
with a mission to buy stallions in Nejd for their 
French and Sardinian majesties. 

The envoy set out late in January, 1864, consoled, 
he says, amid the tears and dismal prognostications 
of his family, by the glorious hope of inscribing his 
name on the roll of explorers. Thanks to intimate 
relations with the Anaze Bedawins, and especially 
the Roala chief, he was passed quickly through the 
territories of the Beni Sokhr and Sherarat, and without 
incident reached Teima on February nth, by a line 
of wells sunk on the skirts of the Nafud to east of the 
Syrian pilgrim road. As soon as parted from the 
Bedawins, to whom he was known, Guarmani thought 
fit to style himself Khalil Agha, and pose as a Moslem 
and Master of the Horse to Fuad Pasha, Governor 
of Damascus. Unwelcome though a Turk might be 
in Nejd, the Italian held (probably on Palgrave's 
advice) that in this character he would arouse less 
suspicion than if he avowed himself a European. 



THE CENTRE 267 

Guarmani proved successful in his quest of horses, 
but not so in avoiding the imputation of a wider 
and more important commission. Ranging the steppe 
and the basalt Harrah, south of Teima (which oasis 
seemed to him more populous and important than 
to Wallin), he found himself, the first European, 
in the ancient and famous oasis of Kheibar,^ so 
entirely inhabited by blacks as to seem a bit of 
the Sudan. It was at that time held for the Sham- 
mar emir by an Abyssinian governor who received 
Guarmani well ; but the latter made only a short 
stay, finding no horses, and passed on in the com- 
pany of two Heteim tribesmen to the Ateiba coun- 
try. All this part of Arabia, a calcareous steppe, 
affords good pasture, and is full of Bedawins, against 
whom at that moment *Abd-Allah, who, as we shall 
see, had been Palgrave's foe in Riad, was waging war 
from his base in conquered Aneiza. To Kasim, in the 
hopes of reaching southern Nejd, Guarmani now took 
his way, but was soon in trouble. 'Abd-Allah would 
have none of the " Turkish spy " in his camp, and 
sent him, a prisoner, to Aneiza, where, however, the 
local emir, Zamil, then a young man, but destined 
to great fame in Arabia, was not unwilling to help 
one whom he suspected to be contrary to *Abd- Allah's 
interests. Accordingly he sent the " Turk," at his 
own request, to Jabal Shammar. 

1 I cannot understand why Zehme should doubt this visit to Kheibar 
(Arabien sett htindert Jahrett, p. 302). He always treats Guarmani as 
thoroughly credible, and yet questions this, his express statement that he 
entered Kheibar on Feb. 29, 1864 (11 Neged, p. 58). 



268 ARABIA 

During the six weeks that followed, Guarmani did 
his best work for science. The Emir, Talal, was gra- 
cious to the late prisoner of his suzerain, and cared 
little were he Turk or no, so he bought horses. The 
"Agha " had free range of all his territory, went 
in and out of Hail, even to Teima and back again, 
and visited the mountain stronghold of '' Eked " and 
nearly all the main oases of the Jabal ere he could 
depart, with his tale of stallions complete, across the 
Nafud, by the route of Wallin and Palgrave. The 
itineraries, therefore, which form the second part of 
the book issued for Guarmani by the Franciscans in 
Jerusalem, and the route maps appended thereto, con- 
stituted a most valuable supplement to Wallin' s and 
Palgrave' s accounts of Jabal Shammar. For while 
these explorers saw little but the capital and the towns- 
folk, Guarmani saw also the villages and the Be- 
dawins. From him we first learn the large westward 
and southwestward extent of the oases and wells on 
which the Shammar depend ; and in reading his book 
we realise at once the basis of the power of Hail and 
its reality. The Italian seems to have found travelling 
over the wide steppes safer than in his fatherland. He 
could leave his purchases to graze at a hundred miles 
distance, with a single attendant, and find them on 
his return, or send for them to meet him in Hail. 

Guarmani does not allude to Palgrave, probably in 
deference to superior order, but (doubtless unwittingly) 
he corrects him on many points ; for instance, the popu- 
lation of the capital and principal villages, the quality 



THE CENTRE 269 

of the market in Hail, the appearance of Talal, and 
the age of his son. The Emir he found to be a short, 
stout man of forty, brown of skin, black and quick 
of eye, with a true Semite's nose. The only prede- 
cessor whom Guarmani mentions is an unfortunate 
Persian Jew who, feigning Islam, had come out of 
Syria shortly before to buy horses for the Shah, but 
was unmasked and massacred by the mob. The news 
of his death, spreading to Jerusalem, was supposed to 
refer to Guarmani's; but it did not disturb the stout 
" Turk " in Hail. 

" In the best of health and appetite I ate my rice and 
regularly made my rikats to God with my heart, but with 
my lips to Mahomet in all due reverence; and recalling 
the Sermon on the Mount of Beatitudes, not to mention 
the stench of that rotting Israelite corpse, I resolved not 
to be included among the poor in spirit and pass into 
Paradise with the fools." 

And in the end he got away safe enough : crossed 
the Nafiid with his string of horses, bade adieu to 
Talal in Jauf, and encountered his worst hap when 
well within the borders of Syria, for he had to run 
from a razzia of Roala in the Wady Sirhan. 

The sobriety of his descriptions, and his evident 
familiarity with all things Arab, inspire the reader 
with great confidence in Guarmani, and support his 
evidence against that of others ; as, for example, when 
he testifies that there was no pronounced Wahabism 
in Jabal Shammar in his day, though a strong natural 
hostility to materialism. Long a student of Arab 



270 ARABIA 

nomads, he shows a knowledge of Bedawin tribes and 
sub-tribes almost on a par with Doughty' s. His fre- 
quent passages through northern Nejd gave him a 
better idea of its orography than either of his prede- 
cessors possessed; and, being provided with a good 
compass, he was able to take the direction of the 
various ranges with sufficient precision for rough 
charts to be made afterwards. Indeed Guarmani gives 
us so many compass-bearings and precise intervals in 
Jabal Shammar that he can claim the distinction not 
only of being the first to render scientific cartography 
of Central Arabia possible, but of having done more 
for the map-makers than any successor except Huber. 

A greater adventurer came to Nejd thirteen years 
later from the same quarter, and by almost the same 
route. Charles Montague Doughty, a young English- 
man of great parts, wandering in 1875, with Bedawin 
guides, in the country beyond Jordan, came down to 
Maan, and there heard much talk of the ancient mon- 
uments of Medayin Salih or Hejr, Ptolemy's Hegra, 
some three hundred miles farther on the Pilgrim 
Road. His imagination was fired by these tales of the 
rock houses of the Beni Thamud, famous in Moslem 
fable, desired in vain by the eyes of Burckhardt and 
Burton, and seen only by Varthema and his early pil- 
grim followers. Unwilling to forswear his faith, even 
in pretence, Doughty yet thought to go thus far down 
the hajj road without fatal peril, for Hejr, though 
a holy spot, is not reckoned in the forbidden Hijaz; 




Charles Montague Doughty 



THE CENTRE 271 

but to try to pass the tribesmen, who beset the Syrian 
marches, alone and without some support was to 
court certain failure and probable death. Therefore 
he returned to Damascus and made interest with his 
consul and the Ottoman authorities. The first repudi- 
ated him, the second discouraged. But, trusting to 
the friendliness of the Kurdish pasha of the Pilgrim 
caravan, and the Turk's respect for a western man 
thrown on his protection, Doughty determined to 
venture; and, quietly joining himself to the Syrian 
hajj, rode covertly to Arabia with the connivance of 
friends. 

The brave old pasha recognised the accomplished 
fact of Doughty's arrival at Medayin Salih by com- 
mending him to the Moorish captain of the local fort, 
and to the Bedawins, who range the steppes and re- 
ceive subsidy for the pilgrims' passage; and there 
Doughty, under the name Khalil, remained till the 
pilgrims came again, living the life of the wild 
crew in the blockhouse, and making excursions, under 
Bedawin guidance, to the monuments, as far south 
as the palm oasis of el-Ala, which is accounted the 
gate of Hijaz. Perhaps those hewn tombs with Na- 
bathrean inscriptions of the early Christian era and 
facades in the manner of Petra, and the graffiti in 
Nabathaean and Himyaritic scripts proved somewhat 
below his expectation. But for their great rarity they 
were worth his risk; and the copies and drawings 
which he sent from the spot to Renan and De Vogiie in 
Paris have earned him fame with all Semitic scholars. 



272 ARABIA 

Living and roaming thus, Doughty caught the fever 
of further discovery, and, above all, v^^ould push south- 
ward to the oasis of Kheibar, an old seat of the Jew^s, 
visited (though possibly he did not then know it) by 
Guarmani. But he could not find guidance over the 
direct road, and must hope to attain by some circuitous 
way in Bedawin company. When the hdjj returned, 
therefore. Doughty let it pass, begging a farewell com- 
mendation of the pasha, and some drugs and instruc- 
tions in their use from his physician, for he was almost 
without money, and must live henceforward on the 
scanty earnings of a wandering leech and the hospi- 
tality that, to one of his craft, the tent-dwellers rarely 
deny. Thus slenderly endowed, he committed himself 
to a Fejir sheikh, and began, an avowed Christian ^ and 
" Ingleysy," those strange wanderings over Central 
Arabia which were to last nearly two years, to give 
him unequalled knowledge of Bedawin society, and to 
lead to the writing of one of the most extraordinary 
narratives in the literature of travel. 

There is no space here to follow his vagrant tracks. 
He went to Teima and found inscriptions, — among 
them (but he did not copy it) the old Aramaean text, 
since famous as the " Teima Stone ; " and it was his 
report that brought Huber to the spot two years later. 
After an experience of Ibn Rashid's far-reaching hand 

1 One who had lived in Mecca, Dr. J. Snouck Hurgronje, when 
reviewing Doughty's book with enthusiastic admiration in the Revue de 
VHistoire des Religions (xx. p. 82), took the traveller to task for having 
always called himself by the name of most contempt, Nasrany. He 
would have fared better, and been not less honest, says Hurgronje, had 
be avowed himself instead a Messihi. 




.^.^.; 



Sketch by Doughty of a Tomb Facade at El Hejr I 

From Arabia Deserta, by kind permission of tlie Syndics of the Cambridge University Press! 



THE CENTRE 273 

he wandered back to the Hejr fort, and out awhile on 
the black lavas of the Harrah, in the spring of the 
year, with the Moahib tents, learning the secret sources 
of Wady Hamd. In the summer he doubled back to 
Teima, and, passing on to Hail, abode for a season 
in the Emir's shadow, a not welcome, but a suffered 
guest. Here at last he found furtherance, such as it 
was, to Kheibar, and thither came across the steppe 
and the harrah country, despite treacherous guidance 
of the nomads. Kheibar, then in Ottoman keeping, 
was to be long his prison ; but he found a steady 
friend to withstand the black governor, and endured 
till reference had been made to Medina, and word 
came that he might go in peace ; and in the meanwhile 
he had found in the Kheibar harrah the sources of the 
great Wady er-Rumma. Later on, after a visit to 
Kasim, he was able to confirm and elucidate Wetz- 
stein's solution of the hydrography of mid-Nejd. 

Unwillingly he found himself once more bound for 
Hail, and unwelcome was he again seen there. The 
Emir was out in the field, and, at the hands of his 
deputy, fearful for the public peace. Doughty met 
the fate that later was to threaten Nolde. He was 
expelled ignominiowsly, and suffering much indig- 
nity on the Shammar steppes came at last to Bereida 
in Kasim. Persecuted thence, he found better treat- 
ment in the rival town Aneiza; and though some- 
times in great peril, and once driven away, he held 
on for many months by grace of certain enlightened 
merchant-folk and of Zamil the famous champion of 

18 



274 ARABIA 

the town's independence, till the annual " butter-cara- 
van " set forth for Mecca, and he could journey 
with it across the Ateiba steppes to the last station 
before the Holy City. There the end all but came 
at the hands of a fanatic sharif, eager for the blood 
and the goods of the sacrilegious stranger, and 
hardly did Doughty, plundered and beaten, prevail 
with his tormentors to appeal to the prince in Taif. 
That humane potentate, mindful of his commerce with 
India, and of the price that Christian guns had ex- 
acted for Christian lives in Jidda once on a time, was 
better disposed to hang the captors than their captive. 
He clothed and fed the stranger, exacted restitution 
of his loss, and even offered furtherance to the 
southern parts about Wady Bishe. But Doughty, 
sick and penniless, asked only for convoy to 'Jidda, 
and was honourably escorted down Wady Fatima to 
the end of his long wandering in Arabia. 

No one has looked so narrowly at the land and 
the life of Arabia as Doughty, and no one has painted 
them in literature with a touch so sensitive, so sincere, 
and so sure. And not only Bedawin life, of whose 
hardships he suffered the last, wandering as one poorer 
than the poorest, but also the life of the oasis towns 
of Nejd. For even of Palgrave, who had a sympathy 
with town Arabs which he denied to Bedawins, the 
best one may say is this : that his vivid picture of Hail 
is only less convincing than Doughty's, and that his 
account of life in Riad is worthy to be compared with 
his successor's description of life in Aneiza. Of the 



THE CENTRE 275 

tenting society in steppes and deserts, which is of one 
character all the world over, and changes as little 
with the procession of centuries as anything human, 
Doughty's presentment may well be held final ; for not 
only did he see it whole, and, despite a certain prejudice 
against all things Semitic, with a sympathy that has 
never been excelled, but he has described it in language 
which with all its untimely elaboration has the precision 
and inevitableness of supreme style. One may wish, 
for the sake of the appeal that his great book might 
have made to a wider audience than the few who feel 
enthusiasm for Arab things and are not over-preoccu- 
pied with the strangeness of his stately Elizabethan, that 
he had condensed his narrative and accepted the literary 
language of his own day. But at the same time it 
must be allowed that the archaistic effort, sustained by 
Doughty's quixotic genius through more than a thou- 
sand pages of his " Arabia Deserta," is curiously in 
keeping not only with the quixotism of this " Nas- 
rany's " adventure in the Lions' Den of Islam, but 
with the primeval society he set himself to describe. 

Right Elizabethan or not, no word of Doughty's 
best descriptions of the desert and the desert folk can 
be spared. Each falls inevitable and indispensable 
to its place as in all great style; and each strikes full 
and true on every reader who has seen, be it ever 
so little, the dusty steppe and the black booths of 
hair. One can do Doughty's pregnant pages no 
justice by quotation ; but, for an example, lest I 
seem to praise him overmuch without book, let me 



276 ARABIA 

offer this to anyone who has had experience of the 
camel : — 

" If after some shower the great drinkless cattle find 
rain-water lodged in any hollow rocks, I have seen them 
slow to put down their heavy long necks; so they snufif 
to it, and bathing but the borders of their flaggy lips, 
blow them out and shake the head again, as it were with 
loathing. The nomad camels are strong and frolic in 
these fat weeks of the spring pasture. Now it is they 
lay up flesh and grease in their humps for the languor 
of the desert summer and the long year. Driven home 
full-bellied at sunset, they come hugely bouncing in be- 
fore their herdsmen ; the householders, going forth from 
the booths, lure to them as they run lurching by with 
loud WoUo-tvollo-wollo! and to stay them, Woh-ho, 
tvoh-ho, woh-ho! They chide any that strikes a tent 
cord with hutch! The camels are couched every troop 
beside, about, and the more of them before, the booth 
of their household; there all night they lie ruckling and 
chawing their huge cuds till the light of the morrow. 
The Arabs say that their camels never sleep ; the weary 
brute may stretch down his long neck upon the ground, 
closing awhile his great liquid eyes, but after a space he 
will right again the great languid carcase and fall to 
chawing." 

Yet this is no better a picture than a hundred others 
you may find in that Georgic of the Desert. Therein 
one sees not so much particular scenes as types; even 
as, on reading Doughty' s personal adventures, one 
feels him to be less an individual than a type of all 
his kind undergoing a certain trial of spirit. His 
book belongs to that rare and supreme class in which 



THE CENTRE 277 

the author speaks not for himself but for all who 
might find themselves in like case. 

Such is the whole array of our witness for the 
centre of Arabia. All the explorers mentioned have 
been in Hail, and the central Shammar district of 
the Twin Mountains, Aja and Selma. Palgrave, the 
Blunts, and Nolde may be said to have seen that only. 
The rest have all passed through the western steppes 
on various tracks; and, again, all but Wallin, the 
Blunts, and Euting have entered Kasim. 

The three hundred miles' breadth of gravelly steppe, 
varied by strips of sand, which divides Jabal Shammar 
from the Persian Gulf, has not been traversed by any 
European; but it is habitually passed by Ibn Rashid's 
grooms on their way to Koweit with horses for the 
Bombay market. These strike outwards from the 
wells of Shaiba, where the road from South Nejd, 
taken by Nolde on his return from Muhammad's war- 
camp near Bereida, comes in on the right to join the 
northward pilgrim track to Meshed Ali, which forks 
on the left. After crossing a hard calcareous tract in 
a due easterly direction for something less than a hun- 
dred and fifty miles, the horse caravans come into the 
lower course of Wady er-Rumma, and drink from a 
series of wells in its bed, as far as Koweit. Since 
Pelly, who followed a line not above a hundred miles 
southeast of this on his way to Riad, and Wallin, 
Huber, the Blunts, and Nolde, who took tracks to 
Meshed Ali not much farther to northwest, all alike 



^78 ARABIA 

report their passage through featureless and uniform 
steppe-deserts, such as are normal on the plateau, we 
may safely dismiss the region east of Hail as being 
without special geographical interest, except for one 
fact : it is bisected by the main channel of North 
Arabian drainage, a chart of whose exact course and 
gradations would be well worth the making. 

Central Jabal Shammar consists of a plateau of 
intrusive granites, upon which stand up two parallel 
ridges, running from northeast to southwest. The 
more northerly, Aja, is the higher and bolder and 
more extensive. Rising abruptly out of the plain on 
the twenty-eighth parallel of latitude, its granite crags 
are hardly interrupted for about one hundred miles, 
and are continued still further, with a slight deflection 
towards the true west, by a sandstone swell, which 
runs under the lavas of the Hejr harrah. Being in its 
granite section some twenty miles broad, this system 
is the one important ridge in north Central Arabia, 
and as such was reported to Ptolemy. Its southern 
fellow is much less noteworthy. Jabal Selma, neither 
so high nor so broad, dies away into the plateau after 
a course of less than fifty miles. The broad vale 
between these two ridges, deriving ground water from 
the drainage of both, is the best part of Jabal Shammar, 
a tract of oases interrupted by granitic steppe. The 
capital, Hail, and the large villages, of which the chief 
is Kafar, lie under the northern wall ; the older capital, 
Faid, and other lesser villages, face them from below 
the southern wall. But both in the folds of the hills 



THE CENTRE 279 

and along tneir outward flanks lie other patches of 
fertility, with isolated settlements. These are specially 
numerous to southwest and west of the low tail of 
Jabal Selma, from which start many feeders of the 
upper course of Wady er-Rumma. Here are Mes- 
tajedde and other small pastoral settlements, first 
visited by Guarmani in search of horseflesh. 

As for what lies to north of Jabal Aja and south 
of the great sands, — a rolling plateau, granitic in the 
east and calcareous or sandy in the west, — we have 
had already the descriptions given by Nafiid travellers. 
Such small palm oases as they passed on their route 
from Jubbe to Hail reappear at the southern butt of 
Jabal Aja, near the mouth of a remarkable cleft 
which affords direct passage through the ridge to 
Hail. Thus Doughty described it : — 

" Riding over a last mile of the plain, with blue and 
red granite rocks to the steep sides of Ajja, I saw a 
passage before us in a cleft which opens through the 
midst of the mountain, eighteen long miles to the plain 
beyond ; this strait is named Ria es-Self. The way at 
first is steep and rugged; about nine o'clock we went 
by a cold spring which tumbled from the cliflf above. 
I have not seen another falling water in the waterless 
Arabia. There we filled our girby, and the Arabs, slip- 
ping off their clothing, ran to wash themselves ; — the 
nomads at every opportunity of water will plash like 
sparrows. Not much further are rude ground walls of 
an ancient dam, and in a bay of the mountain unhus- 
banded palms of the Bedawins; there was some tillage 
in time past. At the highest of the ria I found five 
thousand one hundred feet." 



28o ARABIA 

The land, which about Gofeife affords good pas- 
ture, shelves away northwestward into " a high and 
open plain, — three thousand eight hundred feet . . . 
all strewed with shales, as it were, of iron-stone," and 
this, with intervals of sand, — tongues put forth from 
the near Nafud, — continues all the way to Teima and 
Hejr. Much the best description of it is Doughty' s, 
who wandered all about the steppes to east and south 
of Teima with his Fukara hosts ; but it has been passed 
often, since it lies on the direct road from Hail to 
Teima. 

This last-named oasis, sunk in the southwest corner 
of the Nafud, and described already by Wallin, has 
attracted more attention from explorers than would 
be warranted by its small circuit and its productivity 
(though Doughty thought this great compared to that 
of the rest of North Nejd). The lure has been an- 
cient Tema. The first considerable oasis in Arabia 
proper beyond the sands, Teima was evidently of old 
a more important road station than it now is, and 
probably was a dividing point of roads from Petra 
to Gerra in the east and Sheba in the south. Hence 
many relics of antiquity are found there, and among 
them certain which, pertaining not to the Arabian 
civilisation, but to the Syrian of four to five cen- 
turies B. c, and likely to throw light on biblical his- 
tory, have excited singular interest among scholars. 
The existence of inscriptions there, not only Naba- 
thsean or Himyaritic, but Aramaean, was first estab- 
lished by Doughty, who heard of, but did not see, 



THE CENTRE 281 

a long text, inscribed on one of the stones which had 
been used to wall up the great hudaj, or well pit, then 
in collapse. Huber had better fortune on his first 
visit; and when he returned, in 1883, with Euting, he 
succeeded in buying the stone and packing it on a 
camel to Hail, where, after much international jeal- 
ousy, an emissary from the French consul in Jidda 
secured it.^ It is a record of the introduction of a 

1 The phrase "international jealousy" requires explanation. The 
story of the stone after its discovery is strange and obscure, and as it 
has some bearing on the movements of three explorers, Huber, Euting, 
and Snouck Hurgronje, it may be briefly told here. Huber first saw the 
stone in 1879, but was able to decipher only a few lines on its much 
damaged surface, and it appears that he accepted Euting's company in 
1883 expressly that a better copy might be made by one of the first Se- 
mitic experts in Europe. The two travellers seem not to have been in 
very good accord, and their accounts of matters in Hail are singularly 
discrepant. For example, Huber never mentions Euting in his posthu- 
mous diary (as published), and speaks of having ordered everything of 
his own motion. Euting, on the other hand, mentions his companion 
frequently, but as a subordinate. Nevertheless they went on to Teima 
together. The stone was copied by Euting, and impressions were taken 
by both travellers. It was then found possible to purchase, and in this 
transaction probably Huber had the larger share, thanks to his greater 
familiarity with the place and people. The package was sent to Hail, and 
the pair of travellers went on to el-Ala. There they parted, " sehr freund- 
Itch," says Euting. The latter soon after was attacked by Jeheina Bed- 
awins, killed two, and fled for his life to el-Wij, whence he reached 
Jerusalem. Huber returned to Hail, and presently set out for Jidda. 
Arrived there, by way of Mecca (see p. 192), he sent his "squeezes" 
home, and then set out against advice to return to Hail. His guides 
murdered him somewhere near Rabig on July 29, 1884, — it is said for 
plunder ; but he is known to have fallen out before this with the Ateiba 
tribe, and perhaps he had incurred a blood-feud. 

Meanwhile Noldeke had received in Berlin a letter written by Euting 
from Jerusalem on June 12, 1884, saying that he had "discovered" on 
February 17th the stone seen by Huber four years before, and that it was 
on its way to Germany. He enclosed copy and squeeze, from which 
Noldeke promptly made a provisional publication. On July 3d Renan 
received Huber's squeeze from Jidda, and wrote bitterly that Huber 
had been " prive du fruit de son travail par suite de circonstances que, pour 
ma part, je trouve tres regrettables." Then came news of Huber's death. 



282 ARABIA 

foreign worship into Tenia, and shows the new god 
standing before his priest, who erected the stela. 
After some three others, of which the " Moabite 
stone " is one, this Teima Stela is reckoned the most 
valuable of inscribed Semitic monuments. 

The other considerable western oasis lies three days' 
journey to southward. It is divided from Teima by 
a sandy tract and a broad elevated patch of corrugated 
lavas, which forms a summit of the plateau, and a 
parting ground of waters that run from one flank to 
the Red Sea, from another to the Persian Gulf. It 
contains, in fact, the heads of both the great northern 
wadys, Hamd and Rumma. In the westward valleys, 
which are sunk, says Doughty, " like a palm-leaf," in 
the mass of the Harrah, nestle the teeming ill-drained 
plantations of Kheibar, Varthema's " Mountain of the 

The stone and many effects of both travellers had remained in Hail, 
in the custody of the Emir, who sent a messenger to Mecca and Jidda 
to learn to whom he should deliver them. Shortly afterwards Snouck 
Hurgronje landed in Jidda, and found that Eating's claim to the stone 
was being disputed by the French. He warned him thereof as an old 
friend, but says he took no further part in the matter, except to supply 
to a small extent the needs of the emissary whom Lostalot, the French 
vice-consul, finally sent to Hail. Lostalot, however, reported that Hur- 
gronje was in league with Berlin and had suborned his envoy ; and he 
ended by delating the Dutchman to the Ottoman authorities and procur- 
ing his expulsion from Mecca. The stone was loyally delivered with all 
other effects by the Emir. It is now in the Louvre, and rightfully, since 
the enterprise and trouble expended in recovering it constitute the only 
valid title to its possession. But when one recalls Huber's subordinate 
relation to Euting in matters of archaeology, one must doubt whether the 
original purchase was not really made at Teima for Berlin rather than Paris. 
(See Nbldeke, Aliaramdische Inschriften aus Teima in Sitz. d. K. Pr. 
Akad., 1884, p. 83; Berger, L' Arabic avani Mahomet, extr. du Bull. hebd. 
de PAss. Scient., No. 271, p. 22; Hurgronje, in MUnch. Allg. Zeituiig, 
Nov. 16, 1885; Lostalot's Report in the Temps, July 5, 1885, as well as 
Euting's in Verh. d. Ges. f. Erdkunde, Berlin, xiv. p. 140, and Globus, 
46, p. 107; Huber's Journal^ 



-1&^^^ 






RStvii 









The Teima Stone 

Face and one side 



THE CENTRE 283 

Jews." Owing to a certain sourness of the soil this 
oasis seems to be less productive than Teima, in spite 
of surface waters, which form small tarns, rare sight 
in Arabia; and, almost surrounded as it is by sharp 
lavas, it is avoided by the main caravan tracks. More- 
over, the proximity of the powerful and dangerous 
Harb Bedawins, who range all the calcareous steppe 
to east and south, renders it particularly insecure, and 
completes that tale of disadvantages, which may ac- 
count for its lack of ancient monuments and its aban- 
donment of old to Jews, and to a half-bred negro 
population at the present day. The Ottoman govern- 
ment, which took possession of the place in 1874, and 
the Emir of Hail dispute not very keenly its small 
revenues. Doughty remained there many months in 
semi-captivity, and Huber came to the place in 1880. 
Both claim to have discovered the hydrographic 
importance of its watershed, but Doughty's priority, 
secured by communications to " Globus," in 1879,* 
is surely incontestable. 

The latter's account of Kheibar is, of course, by far 
the most full, but the shorter description by its first 
European visitor, Guarmani, is worth quoting : — 

" Keibar is a village of two thousand five hundred souls, 
scattered like Teime in an immense palm plantation, 
and divided into seven quarters, each of which occu- 
pies one of the seven valleys of Jebel-Harre, which here 
gives birth to many springs of purest water. The val- 
leys are commanded from the high rock which is marked 

1 Globus, xxxix. p. 25; xl. p. 38. 



284 ARABIA 

by the ruins of a very ancient fort, called Kaser el- 
Jeudi. Its population is composed of Moors and Abys- 
sinians, descendants of slaves of the Uld-Suleiman and 
the Aleidan, who remained there when their masters 
some centuries ago, decimated by smallpox, and believ- 
ing the water the cause, abandoned the village, but not 
all their proprietary rights." 

He adds that the story of there having still been 
Jews in Kheibar in the eighteenth century is utterly 
without foundation. 

Of the great Harrah tract which lies to east of 
Kheibar Doughty has given an impressive picture, 
which reveals much of its nature : — 

" We were engaged in the horrid lava beds, and were 
very oftentimes at fault among sharp shelves, or find- 
ing before us precipitous places. The volcanic field is 
a stony flood which has stiffened ; long rolling heads, 
like horse manes, of those slaggy waves ride and over- 
ride the rest, and as they are risen they stand petrified, 
many being sharply split lengthwise, and the hollow laps 
are partly fallen down in vast shells and in ruinous 
heaps as of massy masonry. The lava is not seldom 
wreathed as it were bunches of cords; the crests are 
seen also of sharp glassy lavas. ... As we rode fur- 
ther I saw certain golden-red crags standing above the 
black horror; they were sandstone spires touched by the 
scattered beams of the morning sun." 

Between this and Jabal Shammar proper lies a dusty 
steppe like all such in Arabia, varied by a few water- 
holes which are used from time to time by the roam- 
ing Harb tribesmen, and by shallow wadys running to 







11 \ 



\ 




THE CENTRE 285 

the Rumma bed. As the butt of Selma is neared, the 
settlements become of more permanent character and 
coalesce now and again into small villages held by the 
Shammar. There is little that is instructive about 
either these, or those which lie in the southern part 
of the " Belly " between the twin ridges. Thus 
speaks Guarmani, who saw as much of them as any 
European : — 

" All these localities are vast palm plantations in the 
plain which the sand has formed among the mountains; 
they are surrounded by walls of earth, kneaded and 
dried in the sun, and they are flanked by towers. The 
houses do not differ in any way from those at Teima, 
except by the greater size of some among them. The 
products of the soil are the same. There is not any in- 
dustry worthy to be so called ; the women weave ordi- 
nary cloth (Abah), or striped cloaks and certain coarse 
carpets." 

Hail lies almost at the northern mouth of the intra- 
montane plain, commanding both the exit towards 
the Euphratean country and a cross-road which comes 
from the Nafiid through a depression in Jabal Aja, and 
continues southward by way of Faid to Kasim, cross- 
ing the low northern end of Jabal Selma. A wady 
bed, starting in the southeastern crags of Aja, makes 
a long riband of intermittent greenness upon which 
the straggling town sits astride. Hail has grown 
within the past half-century from the estate of an oasis 
village, and is still clearly distinguished into an old 
somewhat mean quarter, and a newer burg built 



286 ARABIA 

about the seat of the ruling family. This castle 
had been greatly enlarged between Wallin's visit and 
that of the two " Syrian " doctors, whom we left 
long ago seated before the emir's palace; and its 
mighty walls and towers have evoked superlatives 
from others than Palgrave. The newness and clean- 
ness of Hail, and a certain liberal air of civilised 
commerce in its streets, have been remarked by all. 

Describing social life in its private houses, its 
streets, and its court, Palgrave was at his best. This 
he went out to see; and urban society it was that 
really interested him. Speaking of Wellsted and 
Wallin, he says in his preface : — 

" The researches of these gentlemen having been 
mainly topographical, they naturally paid but a subor- 
dinate attention to the circumstances of the inhabitants ; 
and this blank in their narratives is precisely what I 
now desire to fill up." 

To depict some imaginary day in that August of 
1862, Palgrave could trust his memory; and he gives 
a typical impression of events, manners, and converse, 
wherein his minute sympathy with Oriental town life, 
and his command of colloquial Arabic, have enabled 
him to share as perhaps no other Arabian traveller has 
shared. Here is his picture outside the gates of Hail 
at dawn : — 

" Behind us lies the Capital. Telal's palace, with its 
huge oval keep, houses, gardens, walls, and towers all 
coming out black against the ruddy bars of eastern 



v.. 



■r^7\ 



y ^1 j 



THE CENTRE 287 

light, and behind, a huge pyramidical peak almost over- 
hanging the town. ... In the plain itself we can just 
distinguish by the doubtful twilight several blackish 
patches irregularly scattered over its face or seen as 
though leaning upward against its craggy verge ; these 
are the gardens and country houses. . . . One solitary 
traveller on his camel, a troop of jackals sneaking off 
to their rocky caverns, a few dingy tents of Shomer 
Bedawins, — such are the last details of the landscape. 
Far away over the southern hills beams the glory of 
Canopus, and announces a new Arab year. The Pole 
star to the north lies low over the mountain tops. . . . 
Before the highest crags of Shomer are gilt with the 
first rays, or the long giant shadows of the easterly 
chain have crossed the level, we see groups of peasants 
who, driving their fruit and vegetable laden asses before 
them, issue like little bands of ants from the mountain 
gorges around, horsemen from the town ride out to the 
gardens, and a long line of camels on the westerly 
Medinah road winds up towards Hayel." 

Nolde, the last European w^ho has seen the town, 
found it little changed by thirty years. If we accept 
for the sixties Guarmani's estimate of its population 
rather than Palgrave's, the numbers had increased, in 
1893, by one-third, the addition being doubtless rather 
to the mixed townsman and negro classes than to the 
pure Bedawin element. And probably the four schools 
which Nolde visited marked an advance in humanity. 
The Emir, still that same Muhammad who had received 
Doughty, the Blunts, Huber, and Euting, but now 
grown greater and better assured, showed himself less 
chary of favour to an avowed Christian from Europe. 



288 ARABIA 

In the past winter of 1892 he had crushed the last re- 
sistance of the south country, headed by the famous 
Zamil of Aneiza, now above sixty years old. More 
than fifty thousand men met in the final contest, but 
the chivalry of Shammar and Harb overbore the 
southern oasis folk, and established Hail unquestioned 
mistress of Nejd so long as Muhammad should live. 
He died in his bed in 1897, leaving a great heritage 
to his nephew, who now reigns, but has had to beware 
once and again of the house of Sa'iid in Riad, which 
still maintains the doubtful contest for supremacy in 
Central Arabia, 

Beyond Jabal Selma the traveller must cross a bare, 
calcareous, plain country, which, as it begins to shelve 
towards the Rumma basin, takes on a sparse fertility, 
and the name Kasim al-A'la or Upper Kasim. It con- 
tains very few settlements, and those not above the 
rank of watering-places, where Ibn Rashid may tax 
his nomad subjects. Further south the plateau be- 
comes sandy, and a little Nafud is seen to the right. It 
is part of the tongue sent up the Rumma valley from the 
eastern desert belt. The land now falls a step, from 
whose brink Palgrave saw southern Kasim spread be- 
fore him, " studded with towns and villages, towers 
and groves, all steeped in the dazzling noon, and 
announcing everywhere life, opulence, and activity." 

Perhaps Palgrave' s retrospective imagination glori- 
fied the scene, as it certainly magnified the Kasim 
towns to twice their true size; but this sandy basin 
in the heart of Nejd is really favoured in several 



THE CENTRE 289 

respects, thanks to one and the same agency, the Wady 
er-Rumma, to whose midmost course we are come at 
last. 

It has been stated how the course of this great 
wady, obscurely known to Moslem geographers, came 
to be so far forgotten in modern times that Wallin, 
and after him Palgrave, reversed the main slope of 
Arabia, fancying the peninsula of greatest altitude in 
the northeast. Though Palgrave crossed the broad 
bed of Rumma itself at Bereida, he seems to have 
noticed it no more than Sadlier, who ascended it to 
Henakie, or Guarmani, who descended it to Aneiza. 
But he had hardly published his book ere J. G. 
Wetzstein communicated to the Prussian Geograph- 
ical Society the result of certain inquiries into Arabian 
hydrography made by him at Damascus in 1861. His 
chief informant was one Sheikh Hamid, a Shammar 
tribesman of Rass in Kasim, then commanding Otto- 
man irregulars at Maan. Wetzstein saw the man for 
a few hours only, and could do no more than take 
notes and submit a hasty sketch-map. The result, 
despite a serious confusion, was edifying. 

He gathered that there was a great wady in the 
northern Hijaz, which collected all the Harrah waters 
and carried them eastward. It was called Wady 
Hamd, and had its source in the Radwa mountain. 
After passing Medina, it turned northward to Hena- 
kie, on the edge of the Kheibar Harrah, which 
Hamid described as the volcanic northern part of the 
granite chain Aban. The wady now turned eastward 

19 



290 ARABIA 

again, under the name Rumem, and passed Rass to 
Aneiza. Thereafter it was known as Batn ( = Belly), 
and continued to Zulfa, whence it held a straight 
course northwestward, till at Suk es-Shiuk it de- 
bouched in the valley of Euphrates. 

This was very like the account of Wady er-Rumma, 
given by Yakut, to the citation of which by Wallin we 
have already alluded; but it was hardly less obscure; 
for the sheikh confounded the two main and contrary 
channels of North Arabian drainage in one. Wady 
Hamd is, as we have seen, a fact, then for the first 
time heard of; but it flows from, not to, the Kheibar 
Harrah and Medina, and carries the waters of the 
eastern Hijaz and the Harrahs to the Red Sea. Wady 
Rumma is also a fact, but it is distinct from Wady 
Hamd, rises on the other flank of the Kheibar Harrah, 
and has thereafter more or less the course which 
Sheikh Hamid described. In its upper part it is 
known as the Wady en-Nejd, and under that name 
was mentioned by Wallin. 

To palliate the strange error of the sheikh in mak- 
ing one wady of two contrary ones, and to explain 
the blindness of Sadlier, Guarmani, and Palgrave to 
a main artery which they crossed or followed, one 
must recall the fact that great wadys in Arabia are 
rather Humuras than streams. They usually have 
no running water to indicate their hardly perceptible 
slope; and they become in the intervals of freshets 
so choked with sand in many places as to be indis- 
tinguishable from the flanking deserts. The Wady 



THE CENTRE 291 

er-Rumma seems to be least evident where it has 
been most often seen, namely, in mid-Kasim. Its 
shallow, indefinite depression, filled with the gardens 
of Aneiza and Bereida, might well not strike a stranger 
as a wady at all, still less as part of a main valley some 
thousand miles in length. 

Wetzstein was conscious that his informant's scheme 
of hydrography was not without its difficulties, if only 
for the reason that it displaced the watershed of Hijaz; 
but he put forward the sheikh's description of Wady 
er-Rumma as restoring to geography a fact too long 
ignored. To convince geographers in general, how- 
ever, the witness of other eyes than native was 
needed; and it was not till fifteen years later, when 
Doughty and Huber had vouched for its continuity 
from Kheibar even to Euphrates, that Wady er- 
Rumma (or according to Huber, Ermek) ^ was ac- 
cepted by men of science as the main artery of North 
Arabian drainage, and by men of imagination as one 
of the four rivers of Paradise. 

This great channel begins in reality on the south 
slope of the Kheibar harrah, above Henakie, at a 
height of some six thousand feet, and thence takes 
its course due eastward through a sandy steppe to 
Rass, near which point some disposition of the super- 
ficial strata brings its water near to the surface. A 
little farther on it receives on the right a large afflu- 
ent which comes down from the Ateiba steppe, and 

1 Ermek is merely the Turkish for " river." Huber must have heard 
this name in the mouth of some member of the Ottoman garrison in 
Kheibar. 



292 ARABIA 

just before Aneiza a second, up whose course lies the 
direct route to Mecca. Here its bed is some two 
miles broad. Aneiza lies on the right of it and 
Bereida on the left, at a point (close to the forty- 
fourth degree of longitude) where the sandy tract, 
through which it has come, narrows to a neck, and 
there is a firm isthmus linking the limestone steppes 
north and south. A short distance beyond Bereida 
the wady enters the eastern sand-belt of Nejd, and 
all cultivation along its course seems to cease. But 
no one has followed it henceforward as it slopes 
down to the Gulf at Koweit, or the Euphrates near 
Basra, at whichever point be the main outfall. The 
w^ole length of this " dry waterway of all North 
Arabia " measures not less than one thousand miles. 
Lower Kasim, with twoscore settlements, is its cre- 
ation. The great wady comes down in flood hardly 
once in a man's lifetime. Doughty heard of the 
last great freshet as being forty years bygone; it 
made all the Kasim wells brim over for a twelve- 
month, and a broad mere, formed by a chance dam of 
sand, remained two years to attract strange fowl, 
never before seen in Kasim. But beneath its bed, 
" at the depth of a camel stick," is abundant water 
everywhere and all the year through, with which the 
farmers of Rass, Aneiza, and Bereida may irrigate 
their great palm-groves and wheat-fields. Nor is this 
all that the wady does for Kasim; for it supplies 
those journeying across Arabia from the Euphratean 
country with a direct natural road, smooth and well 



THE CENTRE 293 

watered, whereon Kasim lies just midway to Mecca, 
and somewhat nearer to Medina. Therefore not only 
is there a large farming population in Kasim of a 
sturdy sort, well nourished and rooted to the soil, 
but an unusually enterprising, well-informed, and 
wealthy merchant class. The Bessams, for example, 
who helped to protect Doughty in Aneiza, had a 
great house at Jidda, and much commerce with 
India; and in such divans as theirs, Palmerston, Bis- 
marck, and Disraeli were discussed, and cash could 
be obtained for a cheque. Even the poorer folk of 
Kasim travel farther afield and show less prejudice 
than others in Arabia. Among the foreign labourers 
on the Suez Canal the Kasimlis were in a conspicu- 
ous majority; and they habitually act as carriers for 
the Syrian as well as the Persian pilgrims. All are 
of independent spirit at home, and their greater towns 
have maintained continual warfare in the effort to 
avoid the dominion of the Emirs to south and north. 
Rass nearly wrecked the hopes of Ibrahim Pasha at 
the outset of his invasion of Nejd. The more popu- 
lous Aneiza held out longest against both Riad and 
Hail ; its Zamil was the head and front of the last 
bond against Muhammad ibn Rashid ; and it seemed 
to Doughty the best example of a free native com- 
munity in Arabia, self-governed under an elective 
chief. 

In the latter' s day, as in Sadlier's, Aneiza was 
much the larger town, having at least fifteen thou- 
sand inhabitants; but Bereida, which has played a 



294 ARABIA 

more astute but less honourable part in the struggles 
of the Emirs, seems now to be regarded as the prin- 
cipal place in Kasim, having purchased by compliance 
an immunity from that devastation, which no doubt 
was inflicted by Emir Muhammad on Aneiza after its 
defeat in 1892. Neither town has much that is distinc- 
tive. Palgrave described a great tower in Bereida, and 
a ring of bastioned walls; but the palace of the local 
emir seemed to him small and mean, and the houses 
ruinous. The smart and clean aspect of Hail was 
lacking here. Doughty was suffered to remain too 
short a time in Bereida for him to correct or add 
to Palgrave; but he had ample leisure to study 
Aneiza, which his predecessor had not seen; and 
there is no better account of the daily town life of 
Arabs, rich and poor, as a stranger might see it, 
than his. 



THE CENTRE 295 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

C. Guarmani, // Neged settentrionale : Itinerario da GerusaUmme a Anei- 
zeh nel Cassim (Jerusalem, 1866). Cf. G. Rosen's article in Zeit- 
schrift fiir allg. Erdhmde, Neue Folge, xviii. p. 201. 

C. M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1888). 
Cf. Proceedings of R. G. S., 1879, p. 454 ; 1884, p. 382 ; and Globus, vols. 
xxxix., xl., xli. 

C. Huber, Letter dated Dec. 6, 1880, in B. S. G., 1881, p. 269, and arti- 
cles, etc., cited for the preceding chapter. 

J. G. \^ etzstem, ^Nordarahien und die syrische Wtiste nach den Angaben 
der Eingebornen, in Zeitschrift fur allg. Erdkunde, xviii. pp. 408-498. 

For the "Teima Stone," see Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Part II., 
torn, i., No. 113. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE CENTRAL SOUTH 

SCANT as is the testimony of European eye-wit- 
nesses for the north of Nejd, it is scantier for the 
south. Doughty and Huber both turned homewards 
from Kasim, making for Jidda by the great Mecca 
track. This runs through high plains, rising insensibly 
for three hundred miles, till the plateau brink is reached 
between two lava patches on the forty-first parallel 
of latitude. On this long and dusty slope, covered 
with black pebbles in its western part, there are no 
permanent settlements, but much desert vegetation and 
wells at the wide intervals, which suit Bedawins. It 
seems to be the largest purely pastoral tract in Arabia,^ 
adapted to the support of two of the greatest of her 
wandering tribes, the Harb and the Ateiba. 

Palgrave and Nolde alone have marched on from 
Kasim into the south centre of the peninsula, and the 
last but a very little way. The German adventurer 
was conducted from Bereida for some stages due 
south, through the sands which fill the Rumma basin, 
to a point on the indefinite frontier of Woshm, west 
of Shakra. Here at some unnamed wells was pitched 

1 Doughty even speaks of hay growing upon it. 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 297 

the war-cainp wherein Muhammad had received the 
final submission of the southern oases after his vic- 
tory before Aneiza in the early winter of 1892. 
Nolde tells us nothing of the nature of the district, 
but we may infer a steppe, like the Ateiba plains to 
westward. Supplies had to be fetched nightly for the 
camp by dromedary couriers from Aneiza and Shakra. 
The Emir kept his guest ten days, and then sent him 
by a direct path northward to the wells of Shaiba on 
Zobeide's road, and so to Meshed AH, in the Euphra- 
tean country. Nolde must have recrossed the Rumma 
between Rass and Aneiza without touching the fertile 
districts of these towns; for on his seven marches to 
Shaiba he says that he saw no settlement, and but one 
group of trees, while water was drawn about every 
third day. 

Henceforward Palgrave becomes our best inform- 
ant, indeed the only first-hand authority for more than 
half that part of southern Nejd of which we have any 
sure knowledge at all ; while for the other part his 
account is so much more full than those of his only 
predecessors, Reinaud and Sadlier, and his only suc- 
cessor, Pelly, that it forms a text to which their notes 
are but a commentary. We saw him last in Bereida. 
He had come thither from Hail in the autumn of 1862 
with letters of the Emir Talal, which would not serve 
him greatly in the true Wahabi country to south. But 
the " Syrian " was prepared to take all risks to see 
Riad and the Central Wahabi power; and this, his 
audacious passage from Kasim to the Gulf, through 



298 ARABIA 

the most fanatic society in Arabia, was to supply 
him with the most romantic and extraordinary of 
his experiences, and his main title to an explorer's 
fame. 

In the existing state of war the direct south road, 
leading by way of Woshm, which had been traversed 
by Sadlier, was thought too open to the raiders of 
Aneiza; and the party, largely Persian, to which the 
" Syrians " joined themselves in Bereida, preferred 
to bear away eastward to Zulfa, and there strike into 
the track from Basra to Riad. Thus Palgrave came 
to journey, as no other European before or since him, 
through all the length of the mountain provinces of 
Sedeir and Ared, not following Sadlier's steps or 
anticipating Felly's till he reached Ayane, 

On the second day after leaving Bereida Palgrave 
reached the light sands which encircle the calcareous 
hollow of Central Kasim, and passed them in about 
a night and a day (one seldom hears from him a 
precise tale of marching hours). On the far side he 
found Zulfa commanding a valley which descends 
from Woshm and carries a natural road from South 
Nejd to the head of the Persian Gulf; and this, 
though Palgrave did not know it, is a part of the 
system of Wady er-Rumma. Beyond Zulfa rise steep 
cliffs, defining the broad, calcareous plateau of Jabal 
Tueik, a crescent bent from northwest to south- 
west, which, with its deep fertile valleys and high 
pastures, makes great part of habitable southern 
Nejd. Roughly speaking, the northern half of this 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 299 

crescent is the province of Sedeir, the southern that 
of Ared, and in the arc lies Woshm. 

Fearful of Woshm on account of its proximity to 
Aneiza, Palgrave's party went up into Sedeir. The 
province proved to be a chalky down-land, with thin 
grass and thinner tree-clumps, and arable marl and 
sufficient water in the bottoms of a labyrinth of steep- 
sided valleys. Its streams run but little way above 
ground before being spent in irrigation or reabsorbed 
into their calcareous beds; but wells need nowhere 
be sunk above twelve or fifteen feet to tap a copious 
supply. Village succeeds to village in these vales, 
where Palgrave found civility, hospitality, and settled 
order, the roads free of landlopers, and everywhere a 
healthy, industrious population of farmers, graziers, 
and gardeners living in the fear of Faysal. To two 
of their settlements, Mejma, the old residence of the 
independent Emirs of Sedeir, and Tueim, he assigned 
town rank, and as many as fifteen thousand souls 
apiece. The plateau rises in general elevation towards 
the south, and its summit is well clad with herbage, 
and abounding in game. 

At last the head of a southward-trending valley 
was reached, deeper and more continuous than the 
rest, and descending it the party reached the frontier 
of Ared at Horeimle. This great valley, winding by 
Sedus and Ayane to the ruins of Deraiye and the ex- 
isting capital, Riad,* is the heart of South Nejd and 

* Palgrave states that Deraiye and Riad are in different valleys which 
bifurcate below Ayane ; but Pelly does not bear this out. 



300 ARABIA 

the scene of its rivalries. Known in mid-course, where 
the drainage has cleft a deep ravine, as Wady Hanifa, 
it has not been explored beyond Manfuha. But whether 
it falls thereafter into a real " Wady Aftan " coming 
from southwest, or no, it is certainly largely respon- 
sible for the early tradition of the eastward-flowing 
stream of that name. Cutting across a spur of the 
plateau, Palgrave struck the valley again at Ayane, 
and found it " a good league in breadth, full of trees 
and brushwood." The great gardens of Deraiye pres- 
ently clothe it from cliff to cliff, and Palgrave thought 
the ruined town must once have held not less than 
forty thousand inhabitants. Hither some mysterious 
European was reported to have penetrated a short 
while before, to meet the death of a spy. A few 
hours more and Riad was in sight. 

" Before us stretched a wide open valley, and in its 
foreground, immediately below the pebbly slope on 
whose summit we stood, lay the capital, large and 
square, crowned by high towers and strong walls of 
defence, a mass of roofs and terraces, where overtop- 
ping all frowned the huge but irregular pile of Feysul's 
royal castle, and hard by it rose the scarce less conspicu- i 
ous palace, built and inhabited by his eldest son, 'Abd ' 

Allah. . . , All around for full three miles over the sur- - 

I 

rounding plain, but more especially to west and south, i 
waved a sea of palm-trees above green fields and well- \ 
watered gardens. . . . On the opposite side southwards ! 
the valley opened out into the great and even more fer- i 
tile plains of Yemamah, thickly dotted with groves and i 
villages, among which the large town of Manfoohah, i 
hardly inferior in size to Riad itself, might be clearly j 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 301 

distinguished. Farther in the background ranged the 
blue hills, the ragged Sierra of Yemamah." 

Palgrave sojourned in Riad fifty days, inclusive 
of time occupied on a short excursion across the low 
western hillocks to Kharfa, the chief town of Aflaj ; 
and more conscious of responsibility to science in so 
inaccessible a spot than elsewhere, he has made shift 
to describe the physical and social features, and the 
fauna and flora of the district, as well as the re- 
ligious customs of the town, its social observances, 
the types, speech, diseases, and other facts concerning 
the people of Ared, The accuracy of his general 
topography was borne out by the report of his suc- 
cessor, Pelly, who, moreover, spoke expressly to the 
justice of his historical account and his characteri- 
sation of the leading Wahabis. The faithfulness 
of his social sketches we may safely assume; for 
Riad was his ultimate goal and main preoccupation 
in Arabia, and his recollection thereof was not ob- 
scured by that of other districts of equal importance 
till he found himself in a position to commit it to 
writing. 

Not that even in this section of his narrative Pal- 
grave can be said to have taken up a position of 
scientific impartiality. We must reckon seriously 
with the prejudices and predilections of the man, 
the more seriously indeed because the occasion was 
favourable to their influence. Palgrave found him- 
self describing the home of Wahabism, the enemy of 
his mission, and a personal situation which lent itself 



302 ARABIA 

to dramatic treatment. He would disarm incredulity 
at the outset : — 

" I am quite aware that the events, the characters, the 
scenes which I must now set before [my readers] are in 
their telling subject to a double inconvenience: the first 
that of appearing, to some at least, hardly credible ; the 
second that of making myself much more often than is 
desirable the hero of my own tale. But either incon- 
venience, however great, must of necessity yield to the 
truth of facts ; so it looked and so it happened ; I can 
only relate and leave comments to others." 

This protest did not disarm Burton's criticism; it 
does not altogether disarm our own. To Palgrave 
a story was a work of art, not to be spoiled in the 
telling for lack of a little embroidery. We have no 
doubt that what happened to him in Riad was in- 
deed so more or less. To believe that it was just so, 
that all parties in the final interview with *Abd-Allah 
were strung to so fine a tension, and the escape in fact 
was so breathless and barely achieved, were perhaps 
to pay a poor compliment to the romantic chronicler 
of the adventures of '' Hermann Aga." Where we 
cannot check the dramatic passages in the narrative 
of one whose subsequent religious and diplomatic 
vagaries were so significant, we must at least be ready 
to add a grain of salt. 

In regard to Wahabism, Palgrave was not disposed 
to judge favourably the profession of a society whose 
Puritanism was essentially uncongenial to his hedon- 
istic temperament, whilst its national spirit augured 
ill for the success of his mission. 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 303 

" How stern, yet how childish a tyranny ; how fatal 
a kindling of burnt-out fanaticism ; a new well-head 
to the bitter waters of Islam ; how much misdirected 
zeal ; what concentrated though ill-applied courage and 
perseverance ! " 

He refused to recognise its spirituality, and insisted 
solely on the perversions both of creed and conduct, 
which were manifest in the baser sort of the Wahabi's 
disciples. He made overmuch of the sterile fatalism 
resultant on unconditional surrender to a God, between 
whom and humanity yawned a bridgeless gulf, and 
of the sanctimonious hypocrisy of sectaries, imbued 
with the single ambition to distinguish themselves in 
God's sight. He could not or would not see that 
fatalism is not of the essence of a system which has 
prescribed prayer as the first duty of man, and for- 
mulated a code of conduct making for justification; 
and that the gloomy rigidity of Nejdean practice 
in his day was largely an accident, the outcome 
of grievous trials which the faithful had latterly 
undergone by war and pestilence, especially in the 
cholera visitation of 1852. All spiritual communities 
begin with an ascetic phase and recur to it in periods 
of sore temporal distress; and there is more hope of 
stability, religious and political, for an Arabian so- 
ciety at any rate, in such a zealous temper as Pal- 
grave found in Riad than in the liberal indififerentism 
of Jabal Shammar. Theocracy, not the pastoral patri- 
archate, is the durable and dominant form of Semitic 
government. 



304 ARABIA 

The best service which Palgrave rendered to pure 
geography during his stay in southern Nejd was by 
his excursion to Aflaj. This province, long known 
by name, had always been misplaced on maps of 
Arabia. Its capital, Kharfa, which lies really some 
eighty miles southwest of Riad, had appeared on 
Ritter's revised map of 1852, for instance, at more 
than double that distance, and on the shores of the 
dubious Lake Salume; and the Wady Dauasir, to 
southwest of it, had been " telescoped " into Nejran. 
This whole group of provinces, in short, was pushed 
loo far to south by more than two degrees. Palgrave, 
who went as far as Kharfa in two days' march on 
fast camels, found Aflaj begin directly the low, sandy 
hillocks bounding the Riad plain on the southwest 
were passed. The chief settlement, whose population 
he estimated at eight thousand, was not near a lake, 
nor did he hear anything of the " Bahr Salume." 
The slope of the land, according to his information, 
was downwards to southwest for a long way, even 
to within seventy miles of Kalaat Bishe ; not upwards, 
as Jomard's scheme of drainage had demanded. Which 
view was the sounder we shall inquire later. The 
Wady Dauasir, he heard, was some two hundred miles 
in length, a land of thin and rare palm oases, like 
Aflaj itself, and inhabited by a rude, fanatic folk, car- 
riers on a frequented road to Nejran and Yemen. 

How Palgrave and his companion lived in Riad, and 
how fared with the Emir, his truculent son, the treach- 
erous wazir, and the Wahabi townsmen in general; 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 305 

how the rehgious authorities became curious and in- 
sistent, and the civil arm suspicious of espionage; 
how Abu Aysa, the good genius of the latter part of 
the adventure, planned an escape which was happily 
effected, — these things must be read in the most sen- 
sational chapters ever written about Arabian adven- 
ture. Clear at last of Riad, the " Syrians " struck 
at Manfuha into a track which either was that fol- 
lowed by Sadlier, or ran parallel to his at a short 
interval. It led through the low and hot oases of 
Yemama, which is divided only by the hotter Harik 
from the great unknown sands, and thence across a 
line of heights to a desert belt of which Palgrave 
gives as lurid a description as of the northern Nafud. 
The passage of these narrow barrier sands, though 
painful, had not presented great difficulties to Reinaud 
or Sadlier, and would not to Pelly; and one is at a 
loss to understand how Palgrave came to find so long 
an interval between water and water when following 
a track over which a contingent of troops from Hasa 
was dragging guns to Riad for the siege of Aneiza. 
He came, nevertheless, to Hofuf, and passed thence 
to Bahrein and Oman, and so out of Arabia, as we 
have already told. 

The first public communication of Palgrave's ex- 
periences was made to the Royal Geographical Society 
in London on February 22, 1864. The author added 
to a paper, in which was as much geographical detail 
as he dared venture upon, a fluent speech on the his- 
tory, politics, and social life of Nejd, and especially 

20 



3o6 ARABIA 

the nature of Wahabism, subjects which embarrassed 
him less. His hearers were evidently not so wholly 
convinced that the chairman, in moving the usual 
vote, cared to suppress a sly allusion to the " Arabian 
Nights." Nor did men of science, brought up on the 
books of Jomard and Ritter, hesitate to call his views 
on Arabian hydrography in question, particularly in 
the matter of the eastward drainage by "Wady Aftan." 
Palgrave, however, had the better of a controversy 
on this head with G. P. Badger, since he found little 
difficulty in showing that no wady in southern Nejd 
could possibly carry waters directly to Hasa, and his 
opponent was as ignorant as himself of the Wady 
er-Rumma, which does in fact draw off a part of the 
Central Arabian drainage to the northeast. The full 
narrative of the journey appeared in two volumes 
the following year, making as great a sensation in 
France and Germany as in Britain; and the Societe 
de Geographie awarded its author a distinction, which 
the society of his own nationality withheld. Many 
years later Palgrave had an opportunity of collecting 
and revising his views about Arabia, when chosen to 
contribute to the ninth edition of the " Encyclopaedia 
Britannica ; " and he touched various points in the 
periodical articles, of which he was prolific during 
his subsequent career as a diplomatist. But he never 
realised the hope, in which he embarked at Maskat, 
of exploring Arabia again. 

In these volumes on " Central and Eastern Arabia " 
Palgrave put forth a book which secured him imme- 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 307 

diate fame and perhaps long immunity from oblivion, 
but which will not itself attain the immortality of a 
classic, — that immortality which only supreme lit- 
erary quality, added perhaps to absolute sincerity, 
can confer on a record of adventure. The journey 
which it relates is certainly among the most remark- 
able ever made in any part of the world. Among 
Arabian explorers, when all counts are considered, — 
the area covered, the risk incurred, the success at- 
tained, — only Doughty can justly be compared to 
Palgrave. The range of the author's interests and 
knowledge, his intellectual capacity, and his extraor- 
dinary adaptability to the special conditions of the 
land he visited, distinguish him from all travellers 
but the very elect; and the qualities devoted to the 
composition of his narrative were such as rarely go 
to the making of a travel book. 

But beside Palgrave' s high qualities as a narrator, 
his brilliant generalisation, dramatic interest, sense of 
style, sympathy, and lightness of touch, he showed 
equal defects, — vagueness and haste, artificiality, 
vulgarity, and a fatuous garrulity which is truly 
Levantine. His " Odyssey " is the antithesis of 
Doughty's. It is saturated with the man, egotistic 
from cover to cover, the record of an individual, and 
no more than an individual. Palgrave presents him- 
self as a type of none but himself. Reading him, 
one always wonders and sometimes admires ; but few 
can sympathise, and fewer ever be at one, with his 
view of life. 



3o8 ARABIA 

The other exploration of Nejd which followed im- 
mediately on Palgrave's was undertaken in another 
interest by a very different man. In certain respects 
it is unique in the history of Arabian exploration. 
On this occasion only has the official representative 
of a European power ventured in virtue of his office 
into the centre of the peninsula without concealment 
of his nationality, his creed, or the nature of his 
mission. 

Colonel Lewis Pelly, British Resident at Bushire and 
virtual controller of the Persian Gulf, determined on 
his own motion in 1864 to go up to Riad and have a 
personal interview with the Wahabi Emir. It is pos- 
sible that Palgrave's recent action counted for some- 
thing in this decision. Pelly, however, speaks only 
of his desire to clear up geographical problems and 
smooth over certain difficulties lately created between 
the Indian and Nejdean governments by the suppres- 
sion of the pirates of the Gulf and the slave-traders 
of East Africa. The so-called " Trucial Chiefs " of 
the Gulf coast, who both robbed the pearl fleet and ran 
slave-cargoes, were at this time nothing more or less 
than the Wahabi' s creatures ; and supported from -in- 
ternal Arabia, they could not be brought so effectually 
to book by British gunboats as when they had been 
dependent only on their own resources. Oman indeed 
had long been detached from them by British pres- 
sure; but it was another matter to coerce distant 
Nejd. The Indian government, therefore, had wel- 
comed, as we have seen, Ibrahim's conquest, and 



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in 
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a. 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 309 

rejecting an appeal made by the Wahabi Emir, who 
relied on former friendly relations, encouraged the 
Egyptians by all means to finish their work upon the 
Gulf coast. 

These hopes, however, were doomed to disappoint- 
ment, as we have seen in following Sadlier's mission ; 
and since the final withdrawal of the Egyptians the 
temper of the restored Emirate in Riad towards the 
British raj had naturally not been cordial. As Faysal 
began to feel his feet in Riad in the early fifties, he 
ventured on angry remonstrance against the wholesale 
destruction of Wahabi property by British gunboats, 
and followed it by refusing to have any further rela- 
tions with the British authorities in the Gulf. But 
Pelly, lately appointed to Bushire, was not inclined to 
let matters rest so. He had heard that Faysal was a 
vigorous and able ruler, and Nejd an orderly and con- 
centrated state. There was hope the Emir might be 
made to understand the British attitude towards piracy 
and slavery, and in his own interest might withdraw 
support from the Trucial Chiefs. The British over- 
tures, however, were ill received. Felly's first letter 
did but evoke from the Emir reflections on the previ- 
ous Resident; his second, asking for safe-conduct to. 
Riad, remained unanswered. Nevertheless, he crossed 
the Gulf to Koweit, sent a third note, and waited some 
weeks, making excursions and shooting game on the 
coast with friendly sheikhs. The opportunity was used 
to gather information which, so far as it concerned 
geography, Pelly embodied in a letter written from 



3IO ARABIA 

camp to Sir Henry Rawlinson, and published in 
the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. At 
last came a laconic invitation to Riad, but neither 
guide nor escort. Pelly was not to be deterred. Se- 
lecting Lieutenant Colville and Dr. Dawes of the 
Indian naval service to be his companions, together 
with one Lucas, an interpreter, a Portugee cook, and 
a train of native servants, he struck inland by one of 
the three or four Riad tracks on February i8, 1865. 

The party was well provided with instruments, but 
chary of their use, as of all action which might involve 
not its members only, but their government, in conflict. 
But with tents pitched to northward for coolness' sake, 
favourable opportunities for stellar observations were 
found nightly. To avoid remark on the road all 
the Europeans assumed the native cloak and head- 
kerchief, but no other disguise. Being lightly loaded 
and well mounted, they made unusually fast time, 
averaging thirty-five miles for each of the twenty- 
six days which were occupied in marching, with an 
interval of three days' halt at Riad. 

The first ten days' march, as we have said already 
in a previous chapter, lay through a very lean country, 
in which water was found only at long intervals, 
and the camels drank but once. The travellers saw 
no settlement, and only one tree, either on the plains 
or the gravelly ridges which run parallel to the Gulf 
shore, one behind another, and presently give way to 
others of sandstone. On the seventh day the edge of 
the desert belt, crossed by Palgrave, was reached at 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 3" 

the hundred wells of Wabra, each bored for some four 
fathoms into the sandstone. Pelly testifies that this 
belt differs from what Arabs call Nafud, in that hard 
soil lies in the troughs of its sand rollers, or Dahna, 
— a term applied by Wallin to the great billow which 
he encountered on his way from Hail to Meshed Ali. 
The track most often followed west of Wabra strikes 
straight across the sand to Mejma in Sedeir; but 
Felly's light caravan ventured to keep on the more 
direct line, which, after five waterless days, conducted 
them to the wells of Orma, at the foot of Jabal 
Tueik. The crown of the plateau was passed next 
day, and a wide depression found to divide it from a 
farther crown, which is the chain of the Ared hills 
proper. In the hollow, called, like most intramontane 
tracts in Arabia, the " Belly," lies a chain of settle- 
ments, continuing those visited by Palgrave on his 
way south from Mejma. To reach Riad at once 
Pelly should have kept on his southward course; but 
he induced his guides to bear away westward across 
the Ared crest into Wady Hani fa, and thus bring the 
caravan to Sedus. He had heard of a " written pillar " 
there, and expected some cuneiform or Himyaritic 
monument. What he found was an elegant shaft 
built up of small stones and mud-mortar, with two 
crosses cut upon it. He was assured it was pre- 
Mahometan; but more probably it is a relic of some 
early Mahometan mosque destroyed by Carmathians 
and forgotten in the long subsequent " pagan " period 
which preceded the rise of Wahabism in South Nejd. 



312 ARABIA 

The same monument was afterwards reported to 
Doughty as a marvel of antiquity, and by him recorded 
at hearsay, in ignorance of Felly's eye-witness. Sedus 
seemed to the Englishmen a neat town of slow oasis 
folk, but they marvelled at the great stone revetments 
built at Ayane to confine the flood waters. Wady 
Hanifa Pelly characterised as a ravine with scarped 
walls some three hundred feet in height. From the 
gardens of Deraiye the caravan bore to the eastward, 
and, crossing a tongue of the plateau, came on the fifth 
day of March to Riad, which was seen to lie on a 
plateau to east of and above Wady Hanifa, and to 
present a good appearance. Outside the walls the 
party was bidden to halt and accept lodgment in a 
summer house of the Emir's. Here it received a 
temperate welcome from the Wazir Mahbub, Fal- 
grave's bane, and had to wait Faysal's pleasure. 

Audience was granted late next day, but only after 
much hesitation. The moment was less propitious than 
Felly knew, for old Faysal was on the eve of the final 
stroke of paralysis, which led to his abdication three 
months later, and he felt less able than of old to make 
head against his overbearing son, *Abd-Allah, and the 
treacherous Mahbub. The latter was adverse to any 
reconciliation between the Emir and the British power. 
If he was indeed, as Falgrave asserted, an Afghan 
fugitive from Balkh, who had been in India, he had 
reason to know how little British influence serves cor- 
rupt ministers of native states. What gain might 
ensue to Nejd from the present negotiation would 



J^^^ 



w 



■i 



/ 



•••••** 



n 



•'■■J ^ 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 313 

accrue to the Emir: the loss to himself and to the 
slave-owning, slave-raiding Wahabi aristocracy. With 
a strong party at his back he seems to have urged 
Faysal to send Pelly away unheard, but did not carry 
his point. In the first interview, the Emir, though 
courteous enough, rising to greet his visitor despite age 
and blindness, was severely on his guard and his dig- 
nity, — studious to dispel the idea that he would cede 
territory or permit Christian interference in Nejd. 
" We abominate your religion," he said, " but we hear 
yours is an orderly and good government." God, 
however, had given to him Faysal to rule over " this 
land of Arabia from Koweit to Ras el-Had and 
beyond," — that is, over all the Gulf coast, — and he 
assured the envoy he felt himself king thereof, abso- 
lute in his dominions. 

In the course of the interview, however, the Emir 
seems to have learned to respect Pelly, as the British 
envoy frankly states that he, for his part, respected the 
blind old warrior; and at the second meeting the talk 
was cordial and friendly, more concerned with agricul- 
ture, and means of raising water, and the state of the 
tribes, and the possibility of making and maintaining a 
telegraph line through Arabia, than with the higher 
politics. Faysal would have had the Englishman see 
his horses, and make an excursion to Kharj in 
Yemama, where his stock was at grass; and he 
gravely begged him confess Allah and His Prophet, 
and settle in Nejd. But Mahbub and his party, having 
failed to stay the reconciliation, sought now to turn it 



314 ARABIA 

to account, urging that a treaty of immunity for slave- 
trading be extorted ; and Pelly, feeling there was grow- 
ing risk of some untoward incident which would undo 
his work, resolved to be off. Despite much let and 
hindrance, he got his camels together, and an old Slayb 
hunter for guide, and struck camp on the third day. 
The guide, partly from fear of the Wahabis, partly 
from tribal instinct for concealing water-holes, led the 
caravan by an unfrequented and arid track to north 
of Palgrave's, avoiding the oases of Yemama, and 
bearing considerably to northward of Hofuf. Its 
features, in other respects, repeated both those noted 
by Sadlier and Palgrave, and those remarked by Pelly 
himself on his outward journey, about two degrees 
to northward. All main lines of the relief were found 
to run north and south, and seven distinct ridges 
had to be crossed in the descent from the crown of the 
Tueik Plateau to the coast. 

The abdication of Faysal in the summer of that 
same year robbed this courageous mission of any im- 
mediate result. But it was not without effect; for 
when 'Abd-Allah found his succession seriously dis- 
puted, it was to Bushire that he first applied for support, 
offering to fall in with British policy in the Gulf if 
allowed still to exact his tribute from Oman, Pelly, 
however, had formed too unfavourable an opinion of 
the man to recommend intervention on his behalf, 
and encouraged his brother Sa'ud.^ Forced to fly to 
Jabal Shammar, 'Abd-Allah made thence the appli- 

1 Cf. Doughty, A. D., ii. p. 342. 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 3^5 

cation to Baghdad, which resulted in the occupation 
of Hasa by Midhat Pasha, in 1871, and the hoisting 
of the Ottoman flag in eastern Arabia. 

A glance at a map on which the routes of the three 
explorers, Sadlier, Palgrave, and Felly, are marked, 
will show how little of the vast central region of Arabia 
below the twenty-sixth parallel has been seen by Euro- 
peans. The sum of all the eye-witness applies to no 
more than a square tract of about two hundred miles, 
whether measured from Zulfa to Manfuha, or from 
the eastern sand-belt to Shakra ; and even this has 
been much less satisfactorily observed than most of 
northern Nejd. For, except upon the very short reach 
of Wady Hanifa, between Sedus and Riad, no two 
of these explorers have covered the same ground or 
seen the same points; and, moreover, for different 
reasons, the observations of each and all are subject 
to considerable discount. Sadlier, as we have seen, 
dragged at the tail of an army evacuating a bitterly 
hostile land, was unable to question natives, or to 
diverge to right or left of a devastated track. Felly 
travelled fast, and, withal, saw much less ground in 
Nejd itself than either of the others. Falgrave had 
the opportunity to see much, but one cannot trust him 
too implicitly. Devoid of the ambition or the con- 
science of a scientific geographer, he was a very un- 
satisfactory pioneer of routes, who did not record the 
duration of marches and halts, and noted landmarks 
but vaguely, being, in fact, indifferent to, if not a little 



3i6 ARABIA 

contemptuous of, such pedestrian detail. " The proper 
study of mankind is man," he said. It was for him 

" to afford some kind of insight into that real and living- 
Arabia so often left a blank in many narratives, no less 
than its geographical surface in many maps. To deter- 
mine the positions of mountains, the course of rivers, the 
gradations of climate, the geological character of rocks, 
and whatever else relates to physical and inanimate na- 
ture, is certainly of high and serious importance," 

he allows, but thinks it perhaps 

" an even higher service rendered to science and to 
Europe if we attempt to draw aside at least a little the 
veil so thickly cast over human Arabia, its parties and 
politics, its mind and movement." 

One feels it was only for the sake of the Geograph- 
ical Societies, which he found most curious on the 
least interesting matters, that he noticed at all the 
problems of relief and geology. 

While, therefore, nine-tenths of the southern half 
of Central Arabia must be reckoned to the unexplored 
territories of the peninsula, the remaining tenth cannot 
be treated by a geographer with the same confidence 
as Jabal Shammar or Kasim. We are not assured 
about even the leading facts of its relief or its hydrog- 
raphy. It would appear that the general elevation of 
the plateau of South Nejd is high relatively to the deep 
depression of the Rumma basin, but not to the Arabian 
plateau as a whole. If we are to judge by the direc- 
tion of such wadys as have been traced, there is a 
general eastward decline south of Wady er-Rumma, as 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 317 

there is also north of it ; and the basin of Wady Hanifa, 
the heart of southern Nejd, hes not on the summit of a 
continental slope, as Palgrave thought, but far down 
it. The two parallel ridges, which undoubtedly rise 
to east of this basin, and are named Jabal Ared and 
Jabal Tueik, are accidents which do not alter the 
fact of the continental slope. Survivals from an 
earlier level, composed of a hard limestone, which has 
better resisted the general denudation, they bar the 
immediate eastward fall of the Hanifa waters; but 
these, turned southward, nevertheless, in all proba- 
bility, find their way to the Persian Gulf ultimately, 
whether above or under the surface, through the un- 
explored region below Harik. The white cliffs which 
Jabal Tueik presents to westward (as noted in the 
" Jihan Numa") though striking in aspect, appear to 
be relatively low, — probably not above five hundred 
feet in height ; and if the summit of that ridge be not 
more than a thousand feet above the bed of Wady 
Hanifa, as seems probable, there can be no question 
that Palgrave was wholly wrong in supposing it or its 
northerly continuation in Sedeir to contain the most 
elevated land on the Central Arabian plateau. The 
highest points upon Tueik are probably some thou- 
sands of feet below many summits on the western 
edge of the peninsula, such as the Aueirid and Khei- 
bar harrahs, Jabal Kora, between Mecca and Taif, and, 
of course, the Asir and Yemen highlands. 

Of the four provinces into which the small explored 
square is divided, Sedeir and Ared lie mainly on the 



3i8 ARABIA 

hard limestone ridges which bound South Nejd on 
the east; Woshm is the northern part of the steppe 
immediately to westward, sloping towards the ridges; 
Aflaj, a southern counterpart of Woshm. Nothing 
can be added to the description of Sedeir, quoted 
already from Palgrave; but something, by using 
Felly's impression, may be deducted from the moun- 
tainous character which the former ascribes to it. It 
seems to be in reality a rolling country with sparse 
settlements in its hollows, mostly looking west and 
south. The Ared downs are like to it ; and of Woshm 
we can only say, on Sadlier s authority, that it is evi- 
dently mostly steppe, with a central canal of drainage 
flowing east into Wady Hani fa, on whose mid-course 
there is a notable strip of fertility, which supports the 
important settlement of Shakra. Commanding the 
entrance into Wady Hani fa from the west, this town 
has a considerable commercial and military impor- 
tance, and perhaps some ten thousand inhabitants. 
We should judge the rest of the province to be good 
rolling pasture-land, supplied with wells, and having 
several small fertile tracts, especially in the south, 
where it borders Aflaj, and probably receives independ- 
ent drainage from the southwest. The most impor- 
tant of these oases is that of Dorama, on an affluent 
of Hani fa, a place of note in the Egyptian campaigns. 
For Aflaj we have but Palgrave' s account, already 
summarised. Its name (the plural form of falj) so 
far implies flowing waters and artificial irrigation that 
one cannot but suppose this level district of oases to 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 319 

lie rather at the base of a long steppe, sloping from 
westward, than, as Palgrave reported, at the head of 
a short slope. In that case it will probably lie in the 
same drainage system as Wady Dauasir, and discharge 
its waters into the Harik sands, or some continuation 
of Hanifa. 

Wady Hanifa is the main artery both of drainage 
and communication, the most remarkable natural 
feature, and the seat of political power in southeastern 
Nejd. The upper part of its system lies equally in 
Woshm and Ared; the middle part where all the 
tributary valleys have run into one deep cafion, is in 
Ared only; the lowest part of which we have any 
knowledge disappears into Yemama. What becomes 
of it thereafter is a problem. Palgrave reported the 
existence of a great Wady " Soley," in Yemama. 
This, according to him, has two main channels, one 
leading up between the Ared and Tueik ridges, the 
other into Harik. He did not make it clear whether 
the latter rose or fell on its way to Hauta, but he 
seems to have believed the Soley system distinct from 
that of Hanifa, Considering where he placed the 
wady, this conclusion is strange; and we prefer to 
believe it connected in some way with the Hanifa 
system, but reserve the point for discussion later in 
connection with unknown Arabia. 

On the mid-course of Hanifa lies a chain of large 
settlements, — Horeimle, Sedus, Ayane, Eiman, De- 
raiye, Riad, Manfuha, — in one or other of which 
a dominant power has resided since the west has had 



320 ARABIA 

i 

any knowledge of Nejd. All are remarkable for their i 

palm gardens planted in the wady ; Ayane and Deraiye, | 

in fact, are now little but immense plantations, farmed i 

by the cultivators of Eiman and Riad. The towns ] 

themselves are built for the most part at some distance ' 
from the main watercourse, so as to be out of reach of 

the sudden floods for which it is notorious ; and certain j 

of them, notably Riad and Manfuha, lie outside the i 

actual ravine altogether, high and dry on the first shelf j 

of the eastern ridge. ) 

In the case of the capital this cannot have always 1 
been so, for its name means a green saturated hollow ; 
and it is probable that a new town has grown within 

the nineteenth century round a castle of the Sa'ud ) 

family, situated high above the gardens. Its size and J 

population have been stated very variously. We may ; 
safely halve Palgrave's estimate of forty thousand 

souls, for Pelly thought it no bigger than Hofuf in , 

Hasa.^ Probably, like other settlements, it has ex- | 

panded or contracted with the fluctuations of political i 

power. In the best days of Fay sal, when a large part of ; 
the Persian hdjj was attracted to its walls, Riad was 

undoubtedly the largest city in Central Arabia. Since j 
the stream of commerce has been diverted, with the 
political pre-eminence, to Hail, the Wahabi capital is 

probably become less than the chief places of Kasim. ! 

But under any political conditions the unfailing | 

ground-water of Hanifa insures the e^jiistence of pop- ] 

:] 

1 Compare also the discrepancy between Reinaud's and Palgrave's '■ 
estimates of the population of Deraiye, 



THE CENTRAL SOUTH 321 

ulous settlements in this valley. Those for which we 
have the description of eye-witnesses appear to contain 
a society more considerable, better united by natural 
conditions, and of greater resources than any other in 
Nejd; and it must not be forgotten that other large 
settlements of ancient fame, unseen, but reported to be 
of similar character, such as Kharj in Yemama, and 
Hauta in Harik, remain to be added. It is neither 
hard to understand how this fixed population of 
wealthy farmers, traders, and merchants, thickly sown 
along a valley above a hundred miles long, came to 
take an independent religious position, and to exercise 
so great an influence over the thinly-peopled steppes 
of the peninsula; nor easy to believe that its present 
subjection to the Bedawins of Jabal Shammar can be 
other than a temporary eclipse. Wady Hanifa seems 
destined to be at least independent of other Arabian 
districts, if not predominant among them. 



21 



322 ARABIA 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The quoted works of Palgrave, Pelly, and Nolde have been catalogued 
in the Bibliographies to chapters x. and xi. 



CHAPTER XIV 

UNKNOWN ARABIA 

ALAND, where structural and meteorological con- 
ditions are so uniform as in the Arabian penin- 
sula, can keep geographical secrets only in the heart of 
very immense virgin regions. Where superficial forma- 
tions are of infinite variety, where the earth's crust has 
been wrinkled into mighty folds, where abundant moist- 
ure produces violent contrasts of contour, hardly pene- 
trable vegetation and great streams, there an explorer 
may find the scenery, the society, the flora, and the 
fauna of two worlds on either side of a single moun- 
tain chain, and miss a discovery of the first importance 
by the breadth of a valley. Not so in Arabia. Thou- 
sands of square miles of its northern sands have not 
been seen by a western eye; but since explorers have 
passed each end of the Nafud, and across its waist, 
we are perfectly well assured of the general nature 
of the vast intervening tracts. The border slopes in 
Hijaz, Asir, Abu Arish, Hadramaut, Oman, and the 
Ottoman province of " Nejd " have been traversed on 
a very few lines by Europeans who were often very 
ill equipped and circumstanced for geographical obser- 
vation; but no reasonable geographer any longer 



324 ARABIA 

believes these to hide important facts of orography, 
hydrography, or any other department of his science. 
These tracts have been seen at intervals near enough, 
though wide, and by eyes sufficient, though few, for 
their general character to be established. 

I shall not, therefore, include any part of North 
Arabia among terrce incognitcE, nor any part of the 
littoral. I speak of the unknown in a relative sense. 
From certain scientific points of view hardly anything 
in Arabia is known. Not a hundredth part of the 
peninsula has been mathematically surveyed; the alti- 
tude of scarcely a single point, even on the littoral, has 
been fixed by an exact process, and we depend on little 
more than guesses for all points in the interior. The 
only astronomical observations of latitude and longi- 
tude, taken anywhere on the plateau except in Yemen, 
are those made hastily by Pelly at Riad, in 1865. The 
contours of the chief mountain ranges and the courses 
of the great interior wadys have in no case been even 
sketched on the spot; and in regard to the direction, 
identity, and diversity of the latter features, the pos- 
sibilities of error, as we have seen, are all the greater 
for the absence of perennially running waters, which 
would leave no doubt as to slope and relative 
elevation. 

Nor, again, is it to be denied that many districts, 
large and small, in North Arabia and the southern 
borderlands are very imperfectly known. Apart from 
the vast sands of the northern Nafiid, almost all the 
western plateau and the upper seaward slopes from 



UNKNOWN ARABIA 3^5 

Jabal Shera to the Hashid province of Yemen re- 
main ill explored; and, interrupted as they are by 
large tracts of eruptive matter, they have variety 
enough to offer to geographers possible surprises of a 
minor sort. On the other side of the Nafud great 
stretches of unseen steppe roll down for hundreds of 
miles to the Persian Gulf, about much of whose littoral 
it is impossible to speak with certainty two miles 
above the tide-mark. The immense Harb and Ateiba 
plains, through which run the Medina and Mecca 
roads from Nejd, the upper part of the Hadramaut, 
the Mahra and Gara sections of the southern littoral, 
the coast of the Gulf of Katar, — all these are for 
descriptive purposes unseen districts. 

A careful reader of the foregoing pages, however, 
who has noted frequent allusions to certain important 
problems of Arabian hydrography and relief still un- 
solved, will recall that they are associated not with 
any of these districts, nor at all with the northern part 
of the peninsula, but with the south centre. For there 
alone still lies a virgin tract, obscure enough to give 
a geographer pause ere he argue of its unknown con- 
tent from the other parts of the peninsula. Between 
the innermost points reached by Europeans in their 
attempts to penetrate it, intervenes a dark space of 
six hundred and fifty miles' span from north to south, 
and eight hundred and fifty from west to east. This 
unseen area covers considerably more than half a 
million square miles, or not much less than half the 
whole superficies of Arabia. Such an expanse is vast 



326 ARABIA 

enough to hide many secrets of which the geographer 
has no inkHng as yet : it does, in fact, hide certain half- 
secrets that he suspects but cannot unriddle. Until it 
be better explored, the problem of the course and 
destination of all the copious inland drainage of the 
southwestern part of the peninsula remains insoluble. 
There may be an important central lake, as Chedufau 
thought, or there may be more than one, or there may 
be a southern trans- Arabian channel above or below 
ground, longer and more important than the Rumma 
channel in the north. Resultant on such watercourses 
there may be unknown tracts of fertility and nomad or 
settled societies of which no rumour has reached us. 
Or there may be none of these things, but only sand 
and rock. Until the southern area be better explored, 
we remain ignorant of the general direction of the 
main South Arabian slopes, of the relation borne by 
the southeastern projection of the peninsula to the 
rest of the continental mass, and of the origin of the 
northern Hadramaut waters, and the ultimate fate of 
the southern waters of Xejd. We are aware of great 
nomad tribes of whom we know little but the names; 
notably the Kalb, Kahtan and Aal Morrah families 
on the north of the great unknown tract, and the 
Awami, Jeneba, Gara, ]Mahra, and Kathiri on the 
south. We are aware that there must be wells and 
oases far beyond the limit of European ken, such as 
those in Wady Yabrin, famous many centuries ago. 
We are aware that bodies of pilgrims have in earlier 
times been in the habit of passing by certain tracks 



UNKNOWN ARABIA 327 

through parts of this unknown area ; ^ and that if 
merchants do not usually strike straight through its 
heart on their way from Yemen to Oman, or from 
Nejd to Hadramaut, they, nevertheless, frequent cara- 
van roads which pass across its corners obliquely. We 
are aware that there are natural features on the south- 
ern fringe of it which seem to indicate continued vol- 
canic activity of a kind not observed elsewhere in the 
peninsula. But whether this area be in general desert, 
or only in part so, or fenced within a ring of sands; 
whether it be elevated or depressed in comparison 
with other parts of Arabia; whether it contain high 
mountains or deep valleys, be really impenetrable 
in large part, or crossed at will by Bedawins, who 
keep their wells and water-holes to themselves, — 
these and many other questions cannot be answered 
now with any better assurance than in the Middle 
Ages. 

The great unseen area must be considered in two 
divisions, concerning one of which our ignorance is 
even deeper tlian concerning the other, probably be- 
cause it is the less habitable by human society. There 
is a northern, or rather a northwestern part, which is 
certainly not wholly desert, but of the nature of steppe 
relieved by many considerable oases ; and there is a 
larger southern and eastern part, which seems to be 
mainly, if not wholly, a deep sand waste. The first 
is a belt about three hundred miles wide, stretching 

1 The " Jihan Numa " adds, however, that lack of water always made 
the direct Mecca-Oman route unpopular, and Burckhardt heard it had 
been abandoned before his time in favour of a track along the coast. 



328 ARABIA 

across the peninsula from Nejran to Harik of Nejd, 
and bounded on the north by the Hanifa-Mecca road. 
The only inroad made upon it by a European traveller 
was Palgrave's excursion into Aflaj. This province, 
according to Felly's information, gathered at Koweit 
in 1865,^ is really a part of that great Wady Dauasir, 
which is reported to lie to southwest of it ; it is, in fact, 
that part of Dauasir which is watered by a system 
of well-conduits. Palgrave, who found it a tract 
of rather thin oasis character, reported on hearsay 
that a desert belt some twenty miles wide divides it 
from the main Dauasir valley, which itself extends 
for some two hundred miles in a southwesterly direc- 
tion to the frontier of Nejran, having a sand desert 
on the south all the way. It is provided with wells, 
and has tracts of oasis at short intervals, inhabited by 
a rude folk, fanatic and secretive, which builds itself 
palm-leaf huts, and supplies the caravans which fare 
between Nejd and Yemen ; ^ and Doughty, who 
talked with a Kahtan tribesman in Hail, repeats 
from his lips : — 

" When they yet dwelt in the south country, they drew 
their provisions of dates from the W. Dauasir; one of 
them told me the palms there lasted — with no long in- 
termissions — for three thelul journeys ; ^ it is a sandy 
bottom and their waters are wells. Those of the valley, 
he said, be not bad people, but * good to the guest.' " 

1 See his letter to Sir H. Rawlinson in y. R. G. S., 1865, p. 178. 

2 This is very much what we find in the " Jihan Numa." 

' I. e., the long stages made by a high-bred dromedary : three are per- 
haps equal to one hundred and twenty miles. 



UNKNOWN ARABIA 329 

The Aflaj villagers, his informant added, were Daua- 
siries, and the whole journey from Riad to Wady 
Bishe, that is, to the eastward limit of the Asir country, 
he reckoned at twelve dromedary marches, — probably 
correctly, for the actual distance as the crow flies is 
about four hundred and fifty miles. Doughty further 
obtained the eight names of Dauasir stations, which 
are marked at conventional intervals on our latest map. 
The only traveller who has come anywhere near 
Wady Dauasir on the south is Halevy, whose visit to 
Nejran in 1870 served to confirm the statements of 
the earlier authorities, that a frequented caravan track 
leads direct from Yemen to Nejd. He was given to 
understand that a narrow belt of desert divides Nej- 
ran from Wady Dauasir, but that the waters of the 
former district, which he saw in Wady Habuna, 
flowing east, are continuous with those of the latter. 
Chedufau had long before reported that the main 
drainage from Asir reached Dauasir through Wady 
Bishe; and if both he and Halevy be right in their 
surmises, there may well be sufficient concourse of 
waters at some point in the heart of the peninsula to 
form the lake, or Bahr Salume, which the Frenchman 
induced Jomard to figure on his chart. These ques- 
tions must be left to future explorers. It should be 
feasible some day to follow the Wady Taraba and 
Wady Bishe from Asir down the long northeastward 
slope of the plateau, and even the Wady Dauasir from 
Nejran. Their courses lead, probably, not through 
any impracticable sand deserts, but through steppes 



330 ARABIA 

of the kind over which runs the Nejdward road from 
Mecca. 

The fortunate explorer will have an orographic as 
well as a hydrographic problem to solve. Are or are 
not the limestone ridges of southern Nejd connected 
with the Asir heights? The latest map still shows, on 
the authority of the Moslem geographers, a long range 
running from Taif almost to the Wady Hanifa. Does 
such a range really exist as a rib of the plateau slope, 
or is that slope unvaried except by the deep-cut chan- 
nels of the Asir wadys? 

The habitable region of the unknown area is not, 
however, bounded by the Dauasir-Aflaj line. There is 
good reason to think that another and inner series of 
fertile tracts shuts off the great sands, and that explora- 
tion of these will be essential to the complete solution 
of the hydrographic problem. Somewhere to south- 
east of Dauasir lies what early Moslem geographers 
knew for an inhabited oasis region and called Wady 
Yabrin, Abu-1-Fida says of it that it is a saline 
palm tract with two springs, situated three days' 
journey from Yemama and three from Hasa: in 
connection with these points the " Jihan Numa " 
also alludes to it. Pelly, in conversation with cer- 
tain Aal Morrah tribesmen, encountered on his way 
to Riad in 1865, learned that it was still a resort 
of theirs. " Jebal Yebreen " he reported to lie in the 
South Desert, " once a fertile and well-watered district 
whereon of old times stood a very extensive city. The 
city is now in ruins," thanks to the choking of the 



UNKNOWN ARABIA 33^ 

watercourses; but the oasis still yields an annual 
crop of dates. This, as we have seen, is substantially 
what Miles also heard when in northern Oman in 
1875; but his informants ascribed the desertion of 
the oasis to malaria. 

The locality assigned to Yabrin by Abu-1-Fida would 
not be so far to westward as Stieler's latest cartog- 
rapher has placed it. It should lie on the tropic, in 
about longitude 49° 50', and it is natural to assume that 
it has some hydrographic connection with the oasis of 
Harik, to the northeast, and the marshy " sabkhah," 
due east, which discharges itself into the Gulf at Khor 
ed-Duan (see p. 234). Harik lies equally in unseen 
Arabia. Palgrave, whose southward view from Riad 
was limited by the " Sierra of Yemama," heard of 
Harik as a hot, rich tract, which, while apparently 
an integral part of the Hanifa country, extends far 
to east and south and southeast ; it was reported that it 
encroaches on the desert " till it almost gives a hand 
to the outskirts of Katar and the limits of Omanite 
rule." The predominance of Yemama and Kharj, 
whose kings ruled all the wady-land in the Middle 
Ages, has passed to Harik and its chief settlement, 
Hauta, which has often been mentioned in modern 
days as the equal of any of the Hanifa towns. Both 
Doughty and Nolde heard it reckoned great as Aneiza, 
and the latter found its sheikh a man of high dignity 
in the Emir's camp. According to Pelly, it was the 
last town to renounce, at the bidding of the Wahabi, 
the paganism into which Nejd had lapsed. 



332 ARABIA 

Palgrave represented the drainage of Harik as car- 
ried by a system of wadys distinct from Hanifa; but 
Miles's informants told him the latter discharged itself 
ultimately into the " Sabkhah," and so to the Gulf. 
In that case the Hanifa system and the "Soley" wadys 
of Palgrave cannot well be distinct, and we prefer to 
assume that Harik is fed by the same waters as make 
the fortunes of the other large settlements of South 
Nejd, and that the " running streams " there and in 
Yemama, of which Pelly heard that they do not 
come from Dauasir, are part of the Hanifa system. 
And these waters undoubtedly originated that story 
of Wady " Aftan," which bisected Yemama. Wady 
Yabrin, then, will be a tract occurring either on the 
farther course of Hanifa, or perhaps on that of an 
independent line of drainage which comes in from the 
west. It is, in fact, possibly a continuation of the 
important system of Wady Dauasir, destined to join 
the Hanifa waters in the Sabkhah marshes and fall 
out with them at Khor ed-Duan. 

Whatever their hydrographic connection, there is 
certainly a chain of points where water may be ob- 
tained considerably to south of the Nejdean oases; 
for a possible if not greatly frequented route does 
lead directly from Oman to some station high up in 
Dauasir, whence the traveller may go on due west 
to Taif and Mecca, or south of west to Nejran and 
Yemen, Beside the clear statement of Hajji Khalfah 
in the " Jihan Numa," that now and again pilgrims 
travelled in twenty-one marches over a direct road 



UNKNOWN ARABIA 333 

from Oman to Mecca, not coincident with either the 
Nejd or Yemen hdjj routes, we have certain modern 
records of such passage. Palgrave says he met in 
Katar two " intelHgent Bedouins " who had journeyed 
in three months straight from Oman to Yemen by a 
chain of oases mostly uninhabited and containing wild 
palms, of which a few however were held by black 
Bedawins. And Miles heard in Bireima of a Nejdean 
notable, one Sa'iid ibn Jalaui, who came in 1870 in 
fifty-six slow marches from Nejran to Abu Thabi on 
the " Pirate " coast of the Gulf, finding water plenti- 
ful enough till the last eleven stages. 

To south of Wady Yabrin and the possible oases 
in line with it west and east begins the second 
and greater part of the unknown, — that which is 
figured on all modern maps as an unrelieved desert 
of sand, and named in general Roba el-Khali, "Abode 
of Emptiness." The western part of it is often dis- 
tinguished as Ahkdf, that is, " Dune Country," under 
which title Wrede and Halevy heard it spoken of in 
Hadramaut and Nejran respectively. In the centre and 
east, on the other hand, it is written Dahnd, whether 
on local authority I know not. The use of that word, 
according to Felly, is restricted to a hard desert with 
intervals of billowy sand-ridge. The whole of this area 
contains over three hundred thousand square miles. 
Three explorers claim to have had distant views of 
its mysterious sands, — Wellsted from the crest of 
Jabal Akhdar in Oman in 1836, Wrede from a point 



334 ARABIA 

north of the main Hadramaut wady in 1843, ^^^ 
Halevy on his passage from the Jauf of Yemen to 
Nejran in 1870. Their descriptions of their respec- 
tive prospects have been quoted. All looked out over 
illimitable sands, and all found their attendant Bed- 
awins shudder at the bare idea of venturing far 
upon them, whether from reasonable or superstitious 
fear. Yet of none of these three can it be said v^^ith 
confidence that he looked into the true desert. Well- 
sted stood at a height and a distance from which 
details of the features of the plains must have been 
nearly invisible; and if there were no oases in sight 
to westward of his particular point of view on Jabal 
Akhdar, from other parts of the range there are cer- 
tainly such to be seen extending at least a hundred 
miles farther inland. Of Wrede it was said by Hirsch 
that he cannot have reached the true Ahkaf, for that 
lies much farther north than his Bahr as-Safi; while 
as for Halevy, whose testimony is more likely to be 
sound, the vagueness of his statement and his lack of 
information on the destiny of the drainage, which he 
saw flowing east from Nejran, suggest that he was 
somewhat easily satisfied with the assertions of 
guides,^ only too anxious to deter him from any 
excursion out of the direct path. At the same time 
the information gleaned by most other Arabian trav- 
ellers tallies with that of these three claimants to eye- 
witness. So great an authority as Doughty states: — 

1 He confines himself to saying of the Ahkaf that " I'lmagination 
seule ose sonder les profondeurs mysterieuses." 



UNKNOWN ARABIA 33S 

" I never found any Arabian who had aught to tell, 
even by hearsay, of that dreadful country. Haply it is 
Nefud with quicksands, which might be entered into 
and even passed with milch dromedaries in the spring 
weeks." 

And Euting gathered from certain Kahtani and 
Dauasir Arabs whom he met in Hail that the South 
Desert is all uninhabitable. These men had never 
heard of any one having crossed it in any direction. 
Finally Van den Berg's emphatic statement to the 
same effect is the more valuable in that it is based 
on the reports of exceptionally intelligent men whose 
whole lives had been spent on the southern fringe of 
the unknown area : — 

" Ce desert aucun Arabe que j'ai rencontre ne I'a 
vu, ni n'en connait autre chose que le nom. II en est 
de meme des vallees de sable mouvant, appelees par de 
Wrede ' Bahr Safi ' ou ' Mer de Sable.' D'apres ce qu'on 
m'a raconte, il n'y aurait pas de communication au nord 
entre le Hadhramout et le pays des Wahhabi, ni au nord- 
est entre le Hadhramout et Mascate. Seulement on 
savait que les Bedouins de Nedjd se rendent parfois dans 
cette derniere ville et que ce voyage durait environ une 
quinzaine. II n'y a routes ni meme chemins indiques, 
et il n'existe aucun trafic par terre dans cette direction." 

Burton and Palgrave, however, received informa- 
tion rather less negative. The first says in his letter 
written to the Secretary of the Geographical Society 
after the completion of his pilgrimage : — 

" Of this great East Desert (the white blot in our 
maps marked Ruba el-Khali or the uninhabited region) 



336 ARABIA 

I have heard from credible relators that its horrid depths 
swarm with a large and half-starved population, amongst 
whom the hardy and daring explorer will find it possible 
to travel, and that it is a system of rocky hills, semi-fer- 
tile ravines and valleys, sand deserts and plains of hard 
clay, covered with thin vegetation by a scanty winter 
rain. At El Medina I heard a tradition that in days 
of yore a highroad ran from the city, passing through 
this wild region to Hadhramut. It had, however, been 
deserted for ages ; and my informants considered me 
demented when I talked of travelling by it." 

Palgrave, while calling the whole area " an exag- 
geration of the Nefud," learned from certain of the 
Aal Morrah, whom he met on his passage to Hasa, 
that their tribe has " the free and undisputed range of 
the oases which it [the Dahna] occasionally offers, 
where herbs, shrubs, and dwarf palms cluster round 
some well of scant and briny water. These oases are 
sufficient to preserve a stray Bedawi or two from per- 
ishing; though not enough to become landmarks for 
any regular route across the Central Dahna." 

In his paper read before the Geographical Society 
the same traveller stated more fully that though 
there are enormous tracts never visited, occasional 
oases of palms and desert vegetation do occur M^here 
the limestone floor is clear of sand. " Many such 
spots," he added, " are said to occur on a line drawn 
southeast by east from Oman towards the Yemen." 
In the vicinity of Hadramaut these become more 
frequent, while " rocky peaks interrupt the sand from 
time to time." 



UNKNOWN ARABIA 337 

This is all we know about the great South Desert. 
It is about as much as Istakhri knew in the tenth cen- 
tury, and about as little as Hajji Khalfah recorded in 
the seventeenth. That a vast district is sand of the 
Nafud type we may be certain; and since much the 
same geological formations and prevailing winds 
are probably found here as in the Northern Desert, 
we may reasonably suppose the sands to be deeper, 
more heaped into dunes, and less stable in the south 
and western parts than elsewhere, — an inference sup- 
ported by the use of the name Ahkaf in the west 
alone. The eastern part of the desert will then be the 
harder, a true Dahna, showing sand only in strips and 
billows, and fading into hard steppe ere the limit of 
the inward drainage from Jabal Akhdar be reached. 
There is reason to think that there is a considerable 
tract of desert pasture immediately north of Hadra- 
maut, locally called Nejd and roamed by the Kathiri 
Bedawins, as well as to east of it, held by the Mahra ; 
while similar pastures stretch far to westward of 
Jabal Akhdar. There, as Miles heard, Awami and 
Aal Morrah Bedawins rear camels in a steppe diver- 
sified by dwarf acacia shrubs, and able to furnish 
water every three or four days to the travellers, who 
pass in twenty-five marches between Nejd and the 
Mahra country. 



23 



CHAPTER XV 



SUMMARY 



THE peninsula of Arabia, which we will look at 
no longer piecemeal, but as a whole, is seen to 
be a plateau, with a long and gentle decline from west 
and south to east and north. Its uppermost levels 
are lifted from five thousand to nine thousand feet 
above the western and southern seas, to which the 
land falls away steeply, carved into the semblance of 
a mountainous country by the monsoon rains, as they 
rush down sharp inclines of friable material; and 
since both the precipitation is greater, and the gen- 
eral elevation of the plateau face is higher in the 
southwest corner than elsewhere, we find the most 
" accidented " of the coastal lands to be the Yemen. 
From the western or upper edge of this plateau the 
slope does not fall inland quite evenly. There stands 
up a more or less continuous rim, which presents the 
aspect of a mountain range, not only from the coast. 
This feature is due to two causes : first, as on long 
slopes all over the world, the denuding agent, impetu- 
ous at first, has slackened in force on the lower levels 
by reason of the debris which itself brings down, and 



SUMMARY 339 

has carved easier gradients there; second, there are 
local intrusions of recent eruptive matter forced 
through the main constituent mass of the peninsula, 
— intrusions confined to the higher side of the plateau 
in accordance with the law that the more steeply- 
folded parts of the earth's crust are the most subject 
to volcanic disturbance. These patches of eruptive 
matter, spread abroad over the surface of the sand- 
stones, and much harder than they, have not only 
themselves resisted denudation, but protected what 
underlies them ; and thus they appear as huge tabular 
elevations, outwardly lava, but inwardly sandstone, 
which stand up at short intervals over all the space 
between the twenty-first and twenty-eighth parallels, 
greatly increasing the mountainous effect of the Rim. 
Since the superficial formation of most of the pe- 
ninsula is sandstone, which yields readily to denuding 
agents, — water, sun, and wind, which exercise a tre- 
mendous disintegrating action in a very hot and dry 
climate, with great diurnal range of temperature, — 
tracts of sand of a more or less loose texture are found 
all over Arabia; and if it were not for the volcanic 
tracts already mentioned, all the centre of its plateau 
would probably now be masked by the ruin of the 
high western Rim. In fact, above the twenty-eighth 
parallel and below the twenty-first, where the lava 
patches are no longer found, such masking has actu- 
ally taken place, and the northern and southern ends 
of the plateau have been overwhelmed by deep beds 
of drift-sand, deepest on the west, and tailing off 



340 ARABIA 

gradually to east, till after some hundreds of miles 
they permit the limestone floor to reappear. These 
two vast sand-beds, which cover between them more 
than half the central plateau, have almost obliterated 
the physical features of immense tracts, absorbing 
into their depths the surface waters, and not render- 
ing them again to the sea by any apparent channels 
of drainage. Settled life is only possible within their 
limits where some accidental shelter has caused a patch 
of the limestone floor to be left exposed, as in the 
Jubbe and Teima oases. 

The interval between these sand-beds, protected by 
the western lavas, is therefore all of the main central 
mass of Arabia that has any system of superficial drain- 
age, and by consequence any continuous settled human 
society. This interval is Nejd, where the limestones 
have long been generally exposed, with only here and 
there (especially in the sheltered depressions) certain 
intervals and strips of sand. The northern belt of 
the favoured region owes to an ancient intrusion of 
granites, which form two mountainous ridges, some 
independent precipitation of moisture and a little soil 
of unusual fertility, which supports many settlements 
and one town. Hail. This is Jabal Shammar, drained 
by short fiumaras east and south to the trunk system 
of the north central plateau, the Wady er-Rumma, 
which has its origin on the Rim at Kheibar and 
follows the whole slope northeastward to the Persian 
Gulf. Along its mid-course, often interrupted by 
drift-sands, is a second fertile belt, Kasim, with its 



SUMMARY 341 

considerable urban settlements and many villages ; but 
in the lower course of the wady, lying through ab- 
sorbent gravels in a dreary down region, rolling by 
successive undulations to the Gulf, water can be 
reached only in deep wells. 

South of the Rumma system and roughly parallel 
to its direction is a second main system of drainage; 
or perhaps there is more than one; for on the Rim in 
Asir and Yemen, where the elevation is greater and 
the rainfall more copious, more abundant sources rise. 
Whether this system (or systems) of drainage finds 
its way, like the Rumma, by superficial channels to the 
Persian Gulf is still doubtful. That it does so subter- 
raneously is more than probable. But the mediaeval 
Moslem geographers and their modern successors 
till the nineteenth century believed it to run above- 
ground ; and we have tried to show that their view 
ought not to have been so easily abandoned. The 
modern view has arisen from the discovery of two 
ranges of hard limestone, Ared and Tueik, run- 
ning north by south in the eastern part of southern 
Nejd. These, while they create an important drain- 
age system of their own in Wady Hanifa, bar the 
immediate fall of those or any other waters to the 
Persian Gulf, and divert them to the south. There 
it is commonly supposed they are absorbed in sands, 
but cause has now been shown for thinking this is 
not their ultimate fate; but rather that the Hanifa 
waters eventually join others which have crossed 
the peninsula from the southwest, and all combined 



342 ARABIA 

fall out in the Gulf near Khor ed-Duan. This out- 
fall is probably in great part subterraneous, and in 
any case presents no appearance of a river; but it 
is perhaps enough to justify the Moslem geogra- 
phers of their " Wady Aftan," which they believed 
to carry the waters of Ared and Yemama to the 
Eastern Sea. Doubtless also a certain part of these 
waters, obeying the main slope of the plateau, per- 
colates under the barring ridges, to reappear through 
the gravels near the coast, and make the rich oases 
of Hasa and Katif and the under-sea springs of 
Bahrein. 

The occurrence of these hard limestone ridges in 
southeastern Nejd, inducing precipitation, has caused 
a third settled belt to exist there, along the course of 
the Hanifa system of wadys. Lying nearer the area 
of monsoon rains, and having more abundant ground 
water than Jabal Shammar, while of equally bracing 
climate, this region of South Nejd is richer and more 
populous, and has long disputed the domination over 
the low-lying, fertile, and enervated district of Kasim, 
which lies in the middle as the prize of its neighbours. 

With the exception of these three belts, each divided 
from another by intervals of comparatively waterless 
and sterile country, the interval between the great 
northern and southern sands is of a rolling steppe 
character, neither devoid of herbage nor of ground 
water at varying depths, but suitable only for pastoral 
life. At certain seasons of the year, and after rains, 
the sand-belts also are productive of a closer and 



SUMMARY 343 

richer herbage than the Hmestone steppes. Since this 
herbage, however, Hke the shallow water-holes which 
primitive people can make and maintain, is exhausted 
quickly, the pastoral peoples are all more or less of 
nomadic habit. Central Arabia is the head and centre 
of the Bedawin type of humanity. 

On the east, or rather the northeast, the plateau 
slopes down very gradually to the Persian Gulf, under 
whose shallow waters it shelves away. The littoral 
on this side, therefore, is not other than the inner 
land, only more sterile by reason of its lower eleva- 
tion and greater distance from the sources of the 
drainage. But on the west and the south coasts, to 
which the elevated continental shelf presents high and 
steep faces, border tracts are found very diverse in 
their physical and social features. In the extreme 
north of the western littoral occurs an intrusion of 
ancient igneous rocks, uniform with those of the 
neighbouring Sinai. These have resisted denudation, 
and now stand up along the shore of Midian as an 
advance-guard in front of the limestone face of the 
plateau, which, however, they do not very greatly sur- 
pass in elevation. Thanks to their resistance and the 
remoteness of this coast from the monsoon area, there 
is little deltaic detritus; and less fertility or perma- 
nent human society is found on the Midian coast than 
any other in Arabia except the eastern. 

With the cessation of these granites, a low, coastal 
strip begins, partly formed by the detritus of the 
limestones, partly by the labours of coral builders. 



344 ARABIA 

It continues without serious interruption all the length 
of western Arabia. But though the fertility of this 
" Tehama " increases to southward with the rainfall, 
and it there supports certain large inland towns, such 
as Beit el-Fakih and Zebid, its intense heat and porous 
soil render it everywhere comparatively barren. On its 
northern half at any rate it would hardly show a per- 
manent human settlement were it not for the more 
favoured slopes behind it, which harbour considerable 
societies, having need of ports, Yambo, Jidda, Gun- 
fude, Jezan, Loheia, and Hodeida have been created 
by and are maintained for Medina, Mecca, Taif, and 
the villages and towns of the Asir and Yemen high- 
lands. The rest of the Tehama in Hijaz is given up 
to nomad life of a very thin and miserable kind, 
and the fertility even of the slopes behind is very 
small in the north. Both Medina and Mecca are sit- 
uated in very naked tracts among sterile hills high up 
the plateau face, and were it not for the elevation of 
the neighbouring Harrah tracts, neither would obtain 
enough water for half its population. Nor would 
water be needed for the tenth part were it not for 
the accident of their sacred character and its modern 
recognition by others than Arabians. Under any 
other circumstances, Central Hijaz, which Burck- 
hardt thought the least productive of Arab lands, 
would be as unsettled as the northern part of the 
province or the seaward face of Asir. 

The increased elevation of the relief and the inci- 
dence of the monsoon, causing much greater precipi- 



SUMMARY 345 

tation, together, it would seem, with some variation 
of the soils, due to the occasional outcrop of other 
formations than limestone on this part of the plateau 
face, make great difference to the southwestern lit- 
toral tracts, both those along the Red Sea and those 
along the Indian Ocean. Perennial waters flow among 
the hills, though they may seldom reach the sea, and 
cultivation is not wholly dependent on artificial irri- 
gation. In western and southern Yemen, therefore, 
there is found a considerable population wholly settled, 
and in this part alone of the peninsula Bedawin so- 
ciety is unknown, except as an intrusive element. The 
great height of the central mass at this corner gives 
an Alpine character to its coastward buttresses, and 
both their well-clad ridges and the upland valleys they 
enclose are on a scale sufficient to support towns and 
villages much more considerable and frequent than 
are found elsewhere in Arabia, except in a small part 
of Oman, where the physical features are practically 
the same. 

. These fortunate conditions are continued for some 
four hundred miles along the southern littoral, in 
whose western portion the uniformity of the lime- 
stones and the even slope of the seaward face are 
often broken by plutonic rocks. A fine example of 
the long fertile wadys, of which the Alpine mass of 
southwest Yemen is parent, is supplied by the great 
Hadramaut system, which runs eastward, sloping so 
gradually to the sea that it attains a total length of 
some five hundred miles. Its main tributary valleys 



346 ARABIA 

contain as many and as considerable settlements as 
the better parts of Yemen; but the nearness of 
steppe on both hands produces a strong nomad ele- 
ment in the population. Before, however, the Wady 
Hadramaut falls out between Sihut and Kishin, the 
sterility which curses so much of the peninsula has 
resumed sway. We know little of the eastern half 
of the southern littoral, but may be fairly sure that, 
except for one or two coastal strips, steppe if not 
desert conditions, with very spare nomadic society, 
prevail right up to the frontiers of Oman. The mon- 
soon sweeps over this part of Arabia, but we must 
suppose not only that the Yemen and Oman heights 
act as diverting agencies, but also that there is no 
cold barrier of mountainous buttresses in the region 
itself to precipitate the moisture, but only a plateau 
of moderate elevation cloaked with heated sands. 
Possibly also the sheltering ridge which protects 
Hadramaut from the sandy drift of the Ahkaf fails 
here. The absence of important wadys falling out 
on this coast certainly suggests that sheer desert lies 
everywhere not far inland. 

Beyond this unknown region we should expect to 
come upon a gradual northeastward slope to the sea, 
as in the northerly 'part of the plateau. Instead of 
that, however, the mariner, approaching the shore of 
the Gulf of Oman, sees the land before him buttressed 
up to as great a height as in Yemen, and the same 
long, fertile wadys falling seawards. It might be 
supposed the whole southern belt of the plateau main- 



SUMMARY 347 

tained its general elevation from west to east, and 
that Jabal Akhdar, in Oman, was but an elevated 
Rim, like the heights west of Sana. But not only 
are the Oman heights much more truly mountain- 
ous than those of Yemen, with a fall inland hardly 
less in height and much more steep than that towards 
the coast, but there is reason to think that the plateau 
steadily declines from west to east, and has but a very 
moderate elevation where the fifty-sixth degree of 
longitude crosses it.^ 

The spine of Oman is of the same formation as 
the mass of the peninsula, and is not due to any in- 
trusion of igneous or other foreign materials; but 
its direction is not that of the other structural lines 
of the plateau; for it bends away from northwest to 
true north, and runs out into the eastern sea at a 
great elevation, almost barring the mouth of the 
Persian Gulf. One may, perhaps, see in all this 
blunt-headed peninsula of Oman a detached part of 
the elevated Persian country on the farther shore, 
and suppose the true plateau of Arabia to slope down 
to and be limited by some depression in the unknown 
desert to southwestward of Jabal Akhdar. The high 
elevation of Oman, under climatic conditions like 
those of Yemen, induces abundance of water and fer- 
tility, and a similar settled population of agricultural 
habits. That this is more subject to Bedawin influ- 

1 Dr. H. J. Carter { Bom f'ay A. S. 1851, p. 245) heard from the south 
coast natives that the eastern part of the Great Desert was called Batn, 
or " Belly," a name given only to a low region between higher ones. 



348 ARABIA 

ence than in the western borderland is due to some ex- 
tent to Oman being a much narrower strip, backed by 
a hinterland, which is not deep sandy desert, like the 
Ahkaf, but pastoral steppe; but its partial nomadisa- 
tion results in greater degree from local and political 
causes, among which weight may be attached to the 
fact that its only central authority has elected to re- 
side, not in the heart of the land, as at Sana, but on 
the coast. 



INDEX 



B. = Bbni; J. =Jabal; R.=:Ras; S.=: Sheikh; W. = Wady. 



Aal Morrah, B., 233, 239, 326, 330, 

336, ?,:i7 

'Abd al-Aziz, see Sa'ud 

'Abd al-Hud, 154, see Wrede, A. von 

'Abd al-Karim, 157 

'Abd-Allah, see Rashid, and Sa'ud 

'Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad Ibn, 71, 

73. 77 
Abdurrahman el-Oguyeh, S., 114 
Abu AH, B., 135, 136 
Abu Arish, 127, 323 
Abu Hasan, B., 136 
Abu-1-Fida, 2S, 29, 30, 31, 48, 60, 98, 

99, ii5> "6, 330, 331 
Abu Nuktah, S., 121, 123 
Abu Thabi, 231, 333 
Abyssinia, 24, 196, 267 
'Ad, B., 220 
>^den, 20, 56; early visitors to, 31, 41, 
t\43, 44, 46; British at, 130, 148, 181, 

193 ff., 200, 208, 210, 211, 214,215, 

217, 221 
Adim, W., 217, 219, 221 
Admiralty surveys, British, iq^see Pali- 

nurus, Leven, Haines, Moresby, etc. 
^lius Gallus, 12, 13, 22, 125, 202 
Aflaj, 31, 1 15, 172, 301, 304, 318, 328, 329 
Africa, 47, 146 

African association, British, 88, 90 
Aftan, W., 21, 31, loS, 125, 172, 233, 

300, 306, 332 
Agatharchides, 11 
Ahkaf, 98, 147, 149, 199, 201, 202, 203, 

221, 333, 334, 337, 34^ 
Ahmed Pasha, 123 
Ain, W., 217, 218, 221 
Ain Une, 178 
Aine, 156 
Aja, J., 20, 158, 164, 165, 167, 265, 

277 fl., 285 



Ajer, 236 

Ajlaniya, 218 

Ajman, B., 239 

Akaba, 8, 11, 35, 178, 180 

Akhdar, J., 20, 22, 134, 138, 140, 226 ff., 

333 ff-, 348 
Akuaibere, B., 14S 
Ala, 182, 183, 184, 271 
D'Alboquerque, Afonso, 32, 33, 64 n. 
Aleppo, 88, 157 
Alexander the Great, 10 
Alexandria, 10, 46, 80 
Ali (Caliph), 76, 170, 223 
'All Bey al-'Abbasi, 78 ff., 95, n., 

185, 187, 188 
'All Ibn SanusT, 70 
Amasia, 120 

Amd, W., 149, 217, 218, 221 
Ammianus, 25 
Amr, B., 184 
Amran, 198, 199, 203 
Amudi, B., 217, 219 
Anaze, B., 68, 156, 253, 266 
Ancient remains, 90, 127, 128 ff., 135, 

142, 145, 149, 169, 179, 180, 184, 

189, i99ff., 218, 220, 253, 27off., 

281, 311 
Andree, K., 152 
Aneiza, 36, 102, 110, 115, 159, 267, 273, 

274, 288, 289, 290 ff., 305, 331 
Anonymous travellers, 129, iS6«., 269, 

300 
Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, 14 
D'Anville, 29, 35, 36 
Arabian peoples, gen. considerations, i, 

3, 5, 7, 8, 15, 47, 48, 57, 59, 61, 7o, 

93, 107, 130, 147, 166, 190, 223, 2S5 
Arabic studies in Europe, 28 ; works, 

translated, 28, 29 
Arafat, J., Si, 91, 92, 188, 191 



3SO 



INDEX 



Ared, 21, 31, ggff., 108, 114, 172, 299 ff., 

3".3i7ff-, 341.342 
Arhab, 199, 203 
Amaud, L., 22, 128 ff., 145, 151, 152, 

171. I93> 1991 203 
Artemidorus, 11 
" Ascension," The, 43 
Asia Minor, 51, 145 
Asir, 2, 21, 85 ff., i2off., 136, 158, 172, 

i73> 177, 191. 202, 317, 323, 329, 330, 

341, 344 
Ateiba, B., 102, 109, 267, 274, 291, 296, 

325 
Atkins, 85, 123 
Aueirid Harrah, 181, 184, 317 
Augustus (Emperor), 12 
A'lis, S., 123, 124 
Austrian expedition, 211 
Auwalik, B., 210, 211 
Awami, B., 326, 337 
Ayane, 73, 298, 300, 319, 320 



Bab el-mandeb, ii, 206 

Babylonia, 156 

Badger, G. P., 41 «., 142, 306 

Badia-y-Leblicli, D., see 'All Bey al- 
'Abbasi 

Bagara (Sudan), 70 

Baghdad, 75, 155, 156, 170, 188, 237, 315 

Bahr as-Safi, 149, 151, 152, 334 

Bahr Salume, 125, 172, 304, 329 

Bahrein, 3, 10, 31, 36, 172, 305, 342 

Balad al-Angris, 194 

Balad ad-Din, 147 

Ba'l-haf, 135, 212 

Balkis, Queen, 128 

Bankes, W. J., 80, 86 

Barakat ash-ShamI cr Jurayjuray, 244 
246 

Barbier, Dr., 29, 45, 46 

Basra, 4, 31, 73, 84, no, IT2, 155, 156, 
292, 298 

Batina, 140, 141, 230, 231 

Batn, 290, 311, 347 «. 

Batutah, Ibn, 27, 28 

Baurenfeind, G. W., 40, 50 

Bayt-AUah, 65 

Bedawins, 52, 158, 1S7, 202, 260, 262, 
272, 328, 334, 343 ; social organisa- 
tion, 61, 165 fT., 272, 274, 321; first 



mentioned, 33, 67 ; tribes, 68, 102, 
no, 116, 136, 160, 181, 239,268,270, 
296, 337 ; character, 106, 107, 129, 
130, 262, 274, 343 ; laws, 180, 284 

Beirut, 245 

Beit el-Fakih, 46, 48, 49, 50, 54, 56, 191, 

344 
Bekil, B., 56, 120, 199 
Bent, J. T., and Mrs., 22, 146, 210 ff., 

216, 219 ff. 
Bereida, 102, 115, 273, 289, 292 ff. 
Berg, Van Den, 152, 214, 215, 221 ff., 335 
Berggren, 39, 50 
Berghaus, 121, 230 
Bernstorff, Count, 38 
Bessam family, 293 
Betha, W., 137 

Biblical matters, 5, 39, 144, 291 
Bin Ali, W., 219, 221 
Bir al-Hudaj, 169, 281 
Bir Ali (Medina), in ; (S. coast), 210, 

212 
Bir Borhut, 144, 220, 223 
Bireima, 141, 143, 2306., 333 
Bishe, W., 125, 126, 329 
Bishr, B., 169 
Blanc, Le, 60 «. 
Blunt, W. S., and Lady Anne, 6, 167, 

220, 249 «., 250, 253 ff., 277, 287 
Boetius, 21 
Bombay, 50, 112, 135 
Borka, 134 
Bosra, 252 
Bostra, 24 
Botanical research, 48, 51, 55, 80, 82, 

128, 198, 221, 228 
Botta, P. E., 53, 55, 127, 194, 214 
British E. India Co., 43, 104, 112, 135 ff., 

192, 209; trade, 43, 46, 49, 50, 192, 

209 
British policy in Arabia, 43, 104 ff., 148) 

192, 193, 209 ff., 215, 240, 308 ff., 

312, 314 
Bruce, J., 69 
Bunbury, E. H,, 16 
Burckhardt, H., 194, igS, 198^ 
Burckhardt, J. L., 6, 26, 67, 78, 80 ff., 

115, 120, 132, 155, 158, 161, 184 ff., 

214) 270, 344 
Burton, R. F., 6, 67, 89, 91, 178 ff., 

185 ff., 228, 302, 335 



INDEX 



35' 



Bushire, 308, 309, 314 
Byzantine authors, 1 1 



Cairo, 46, 68, 85, 88, 90, 94, 151, 160, 

161, 168 
Caliphate, 47, 79, 84 
Caprotti, G., 204 

Caravaners, early, 11, 16, 19, 20, 23, 26 
Caripeta, 13 

Carless, Capt., 133, 145 «. 
Carmathians, 5, 238, 31 1 
Carter, Dr. H. J., 142, 145 «., 213, 

347 «• 
Castro, J. da, 32 
Chateaubriand, 80 
Chedufau, Dr., 123 fiF., 172, 326 
Chosroes Nushirvan, 25 
Christian Arabs, 25, 34, 41, 120 
Climate, 2, 3, 12, 49, 50, 177, 197, 338 
Climax, 20 
Coastal explorations, 11, 15, 19, 35, 6g, 

i33> 134, 144, 172, 178 
Coffee trade, 43, 45, 48, 49, 54, 94, 126, 

191, 196 
Colville, Lieut., 310 
Combes, E., 127 
Cornish, V., 260 m., 262 
Couillan, P. de, 31I 
Couret, Du, 130 «., 152 
Courtellemont, G., i86»»., 204 n. 
Cox, Major, 232 
Cramer, C. C, 39, 50 
Cruttenden, C, 127, 135, 1428., 148, 

197, 209 
Cyprus, 51 



Dahira, 143, 231, 232 
Dahna, 4, 311, 333. 336,337 
Damar, 42, 44, 55, 56, 59, 195 
Damascus, 24, 73, 84, 96«., iii, 157, 

158,245,246, 252,271,289 
Dana, W., 50, 203 
Darb Ash-SharkI, 187 
Darb As-Sultani, 187 
Dauasir, W., 21, 22, 31, 75, 98, 115, 

125, 200, 202, 304, 319, 328 ff. 
Daumet Al-Jandal, 18, 31, 157 
Dawes, Dr., 310 
Deflers, A., 193, 195, 198, 215 



Deraiye, 72 ff., 81, 98 ff., 112, 117, 157^ 

159, 299, 300, 312, 319. 320 
Deriam, W., 178, 179, 180 
Di Bin, W., 199 
Dionysius Periegetes, 25 
Diyabi, B., 145 
Doan, W., 143, 144, 149, 158, 217,218, 

221, 222 
Dofar, 27, 208, 212 
Dorama, 318 
Doughty, C. M., 126, 131, 146, 164, 

181 ff., 190, 242, 249 ff., 270 ff., 296, 

307, 312, 328 ff. 
Dumaetha, 18, 157 
Dutch in Arabia, 35, 46, 56, 135 
Dutch, Colonial Department, 214 



Egra, 18 

Egypt, 10, 25, 26, 78, 80, 84, 100, 103, 

138, 148, 169, 247 
Egyptians, 8, g, no, in, 159, 309; 

knowledge, 8, 9 ; occupation, 12, 85 ff., 

loi ff., 118, I22ff., 132, 160 
Ehrenberg, C. G., 127 
Eiman, 319, 320 
Eloy, A., 143, 227 ff. 
Eratosthenes, 10, 15 
Ermek, W., 291 

Euphrates, 156, 164, 256, 290, 292 
Euting, J., 6, ii3«., 145, 182, 204 «., 

253 ff-, 277, 281, 335 
Eve, Tomb of, 220 



Fadli, B., 210 

Paid, 31, 36, 155, 156, 165, 278, 285 

Falj Problem, 163, 251, 260 ff. 

Fartak, R., 213 

Fatima, W., 184, 274 

Faysal, see Sa'ud 

Fejir, B., 272 

Felix, Arabia, meaning of, 41 

Ferret, 123 

Finati, G., 80, 85, 122 

First editions, Moslem authors, 28 

Floyer, E. A., 260 «. 

Forder, A., 250 «., 255 n. 

Forskall, P., 38, 39, 48, 5°. 5', 54 55» 

128 
France, 47, 49, 247, 306 



3S'^ 



INDEX 



French policy in Arabia, 245 ff., 247 
Fresnel, F., 123, 124, 128, 131, 144, 
148, 151 



Gabrin, 22S 

Gaiban, 218 

Gail (Yemen), 201, 203 ; (Hadramaut), 
219 

Galinier, 123 

Gatna, Stephen da, 32 

Gara, B., 213 

Gasparis, 34 

Gatti, 123 

Gaza, 237, 247 

Gentili, Dr., loi 

Geology, 2, 3, 4, 91, 162, 176, 208, 
256 ff., 259, 260 

Gerra, 10, 11, 12, 15, 26, 156, 233 

Ghahbun, see Gaiban 

Ghats, 181, 182 

Gibbon, 28, 47, 72 

Glaser, E., 6, 14, 145, 194, 198 ff., 
223 

Gobreh, 229 

Gofeife, 280 

Gold-workings, ancient, 178 ff. 

Greeks, ancient, gff., 144, 223; mod- 
ern, 118 n., 197, 220 n. 

Grelaudiere, de la, 29, 45, 46, 52 

Guarmani, C, 6, 251, 252, 266 ff., 279, 
283, 285, 2S9, 290 

Gunfude, 47, 85, 122, 344 



Habban, 149, 210, 211 

Habuna, W., 202, 329 

Had, R. E1-, 35, 134, 208, 213 

Hadafa, 50, 56 

Hadrama, 31 

Hadramaut, 30, 36, 129, 136, 207, 323, 
333) 336 > incense trade in, 11 ff., 
133; main wady of, 22, 36, 194, 200, 
207, 326, 334; general character of, 
143 ff., 221 ff., 345 ff. ; exploration of, 
i4Sff.,2i4ff. 

Haig, Gen., 194 

Hail, 116, 230, 279, 281, 293, 294, 311, 
328, 335; ancient site, 156; under 
Egypt, 159; visitors to, 165, 244ff., 
268 ff., 273 ff. ; social state of, 166 ff., 



190, 243, 274, 287 ff., 320; descrip- 
tion of, 251, 278, 285 ff., 340 

Haines, Capt. J. B., 133, 142, i5off., 
192, 214 

Haianiye, 255, 258 

Hajarein, 218, 221 

Hajji, Khalfah, 97 ff., 332, 337 

Halevy, J., 6, 14, 22, 126, 131, 145, 194, 
200, 202, 329, 333, 334 

Hamad, 3, 9, 11, 24, 162, 253 

Hamd, W., 21, i82ff., 188, 273, 282, 
289, 290 

Hamdan, 198, 199, 201 

HamdanI, 27, 29 

Hamids (of Rass), 2895. 

Hamilton, J., 190 

Hanbali school, 157, 169 

Hanifa, W., 21, 74, 102, 109, 116, 172, 
233. 300, 3") 312, 3i7ff-, 328ff., 
341 ff. 

Hanin, 153 

Haramein, 120 

Harb, B., 68, 87, 102, 179, 188, 283, 
284, 288, 325 

Harib, 210 

Harik, 31, 100, 103, 115, 172, 317, 319, 

321, 328, 331 
Harrah tracts, 4, 21, 82, 168, 169, 181, 
259, 267, 273, 282, 284, 289, 290, 

339 
Harris, W. B., 194, 195, 196 
Harun al-rashid, 157 
Has, 54, 127, 128 
Hasa, 100, 113, 231, 233, 234, 237, 238, 

315) 320, 330; waters in, 3, 107, 306, 

342; religion in, 5, 122, 2355.; 

Egyptians in, 103, 107 ; visitors to, 

107, 113, 305, 315 
Hashid, B., 56, 120, 199, 325 
Hatim, 156 
Hauaire, W., 217 
Haukal, Ibn, 27 
Haura (Red Sea), 14; (Hadramaut), 

212, 217 
Hauran, 157 
Hauta (Hadramaut), 217, 218, 221 ; 

(Nejd), 319, 321, 331; (Lahej), 201, 

211; (S. Yemen), 210 
Haven, F. C. von, 39, 49 
Hawashib, B., 196 
Haytham, 164 



INDEX 



3S3 



Hebrew knowledge, 9 

Hegra, 13, 14, 270 

Hein, VV., 213 «. 

Hejr, 14, 18, 128, 169, 183, 184, 270, 

273, 278, 280 
Hemprich, W. F., 127 
Henakie, no, 289, 291 
D'Herbelot, 28, 29, 9S 
Heretical Moslems, 42, 72, 121, 122, 

202 
Herodotus, 8, g, 25 
Heteim, B,, 267 
Hijaz, 56, 64 ff., Ill, 121, 164,207,240, 

250, 270, 271, 323; visitors to, 46, 

64 flf., 1852.; character of, 67 ff., 

124, 177, 344; limits of, 120, 121; 

hydrography of, 1S3 ff., 2S9 ff . 
Himyaritic civilisation, 25, 145, 149, 

198, 200, 204, 280, 311 
Hippalus, 14 
Hipparchus, 15 
Hippus, 20, 182 
Hirsch, L., 22, 131, 146, 151, 216 fif., 

223, 334 
Hisma, 179, 180 
Hisn Gorab, 145 
Hodeida, 54, 56, 127, 128, 196, 19S, 

211, 344 
Hofuf, 107, 113, 232 ff., 305, 314, 302 
Horeimle, 73«., 299, 319 
Horse-trade, 6, 11, 160, 249 «., 251, 
-. 257, 267, 269, 277 
Huber, C, 6, 145, 164, 191, 242, 252 ff., 

260, 270, 277, 281, 283, 287, 291, 296 
Hud, 14S, 220 
Hulton, Dr., 127, 142 
Humboldt, 151 
Humth, W., 184 
Hurgronje, J. S., 6, 1S9, 190, 272 «, 

281 n. 
Huweitat, B., iSo 
Hydrography, 21, 54, ti6, 151, 163, 

172, 177, 183 ff., iSS, 194, 202, 203, 

207, 232 ff., 239, 273, 278, 2S3, 289 ff ., 

298, 304, 306, 317, 333, 334, 340 ff. 



Iambia, 18 

lathrippa, see Lathrippa 
Ibb, 55, 195 
Ibra, 138 



Ibrahim Pasha, loi flf., 123, 159, 293, 

308 
Ibri, 140, 227, 232 
IdrisJ, 27, 28, 30, 65, 98, 121 
" Ignorance, times of," 24, 26, 156 
Incense trade, 8, 9, 13, 144, 146, 223 
India, i, 12, 14, 33, 43, 106, 112, 141, 

146, 215, 217, 274, 312 
Inscriptions, ancient, 18, 50, 127, 129, 

145, 149, 163, 199, 200, 204, 223, 253, 

271, 280 ff. 
Instruments, scientific, 54, 80, 81, 95, 

96, 114, 161, 310,324 
Irak, 27 

Irrigation conduits, 137, 319 
Irwin, E., 69, 178 n. 
Isan, 211 
Islam, general considerations, 7, 26, 47, 

64, 79ff., Ill, 122, 158, 202, 216, 

236 
Issa, B., 149 
Istakhrl, 27, 28, 29, 30, 337 



Jabar, B., 229 

Jailan, 229 

Jauasmi, B., 134, 230, 232 

Jauf (North), 18,36, 116, 157 ff., 162 ff., 

17°) 173) 247, 250 ff., 256, 266 ff.; 

(South), 31, 56, 198, 200, 201, 210, 

334 
Java, Arabs in, 153, 214 
Jeheina, B., 182 
Jeneba, B., 137, 213, 326 
Jeramis, W. 210 
Jerusalem, 157, 266, 268 
Jesuits, 33, 235, 245, 247, 249 
Jews in Arabia, 8, 25, 50, 67, 68, 113, 

127, 195, 201, 202, 283, 2S4 
Jezan, 41, 344 
Jidda, 35, 60, 76, 95, 123, 220,274,281, 

296, 344; visitors to, 32, 41, 46,67, 

79, 88ff., 110, 12S, 148, 185, 189, 191 ; 

trade of, 43, 82, 94, 293 ; character 

of, 46, 68, 93 
Jihan Numa, 28, 29, 98, 100, 180, 186, 

223. 317. 330. 332 
Jisl, W., 184 
Jol, 217, 219 
Jomard, E. F., 17, 86, 1145., 123, 124, 

172, 173, 191, 304, 306, 329 



354 



INDEX 



John of Portugal, 31 

Jubbe, 163, 251, 255, 265, 279, 340 

Justinian (Emperor), 24 



Ka'bah, 65, 68, 76, 81, 91, 189, 197 

Kabr Al-Hud, 150, 220 

Kaf, 252 

Kafar, 165, 169, 278 

Kahtan, B., 59, 326, 328, 335 

Kahza, 229 

Kaiti, B., 218, 219 

Kalb, B., 326 

Kamaran Island, 41 

Kanats, 137 

Kasim, 31, 75, 99fF,, 114, 165, 191, 

25S> 267, 273, 277, 285 ff., 316, 320, 

340 
Katabe, 192, 195 

Katar, 36, 234, 238, 325, 331, 333 
Kathiri, B., 220, 326, 337 
Katib-chelebl, 98 

Katif, 3, 102, 112, 113, 234 ff., 342 
Kaukeban, 198 

Keane, J. F., 176 «., 187, 188, 191 
Keith-Falconer, 194 
Keith, T,, 85 
Kena, 164 
Kerbela, 75, 78, S3 
Khab, 201 
Khaldun, Ibn, 28 
Khalid, B., 102, 106 ff., 239 
Khamis-Misheit, 125 
Khamr, 199 
Kharfa, 301 
Khariba, 129, 130 
Kharid, W., 198 

Kharj, 99, 109, 115, 116, 313, 321, 331 
Khaulan, 203 
Kheibar, 21, 30, 36, 68, 169, 184, 267, 

272, 273, 282 ff,, 289 ff., 317, 340 
Kheima, Ras el-, 76, 105, 170 
Khor ed-duan, 233, 331, 332, 342 
Khoraibe, 149, 222 
Kiepert, H., 171 
Kiryat, 33, 229 
KisWn, 142, 213, 217, 346 
Koch, A., 204 ft. 
Kora, J., 90,317 
Kora, W., 184, 187 
Koreish, 69 



Koweit, 4, 36, 75, 112, 113, 237ff., 

277, 292, 309, 313, 328 
Kufa, 164 



Lakeita, 251 

Lakes, 125, 283, 304, 329 

La Roque, 29, 45 

Lar, 21, 22 

LathrifpUy 18, 24 

Leake, M., 90 

"Leven," The, 134 

Levke, 12, 14 

Loheia, 47, 53ff., 58, 344 

Lunt, W., 219, 221 



Maan, 162, 247, 250, 270, 289 

Madra, 231 

Maffei, 34 

Mahbiib, 312, 313 

Mahomet, 5, 70 ff,, 76 

Mahra, B., 137, 146, 213, 217, 223, 325, 

337 
Maifat, W., 148, 209 ff. 
Makalla, 145, 146, 148, 150, 212, 214, 

215, 217,219 
Makhlaf, 202 
Makhna, 180 
MakramI, S., 5, 122 
Makrana, 42 

Maltzan, H. von, 152, 188, 211, 214 
Manfuha, 108, 109, 300, 305, 315, 319, 

320 
Mansur, S., 134 
Manzoni, R., 195 ff. 
Map-making, 15 ff., 29, 35, 104 ff., 115, 

121, 171, 181, 204, 216, 220, 304 
Marcian, 23 
Mariaba, 13, 14 
Marib, 13, 22, 56, 128 ff., 151, 152, 193, 

200, 203, 210, 216, 223 
Marid, 157 
Marinus Tyrius, 16 
Marol, L. de, 32 «. 
Mary, 123 
Masila, W., 207 
Maskat, 33, 34, 46, 50, 104, 105, 134 ff., 

186, 192, 227 ff., 306 
Massora, W., 134 
Mata'ab, see Rashid 



INDEX 



355 



Matra, 33 

Matraka, 35 

Maurizi, V., 135 

Maze, B., 181 

Medayin Salih, 18, 90,182, 184, 270, 271 

Mediaeval knowledge, 27 ff. 

Medina, 36, 76, 79,82, 120, iSzfif., 273, 
289 ff., 325, 344; early name, 18; 
visitors to, 32, 67, 89, 161, 167, 
185 ff . ; religion at, 73, 81, 92 ; Egyp- 
tians at, 85 ff., 102 ff. 

Medinet el-Khudud, 202 

Mehemet AH Pasha, 84 ff., 100, 103 ff., 
118, 120, 122 ff., 160, 161 

Meitam, W., 53 

Mejma, 299, 311 

Mecca, 4, 52, 98, 120, 126, 155, 173, 
184 ff., 292, 296, 317, 325, 330, 332, 
333. 334 ; early history, 25, 32 ; visi- 
tors to, 27, 32, 64 ff., 79 ff., 85 ff ., 161, 
167, 185 ff., 333 ; Wahabis and, 75 ff. ; 
Egyptians at, 83 ff., 122 ; trade of, 46, 
94, 1 2 1, 274; character of, 124 

Menader, 125 

Mengin, F., 17, 86, 87, 114 

Merchant companies, 43, 45 

Meshed Ali, 84, 170, 277, 297, 311; 
(Hadramaut), 218 

Mestajedde, 116, 279 

Meteir, B., 102, 109 

Michaelis, 29, 38 

Midhat Pasha, 230, 237, 238, 240, 315 

Midian, 4, 20, 168, 177, 178, 180 ff., 
221, 22S 

Middleton, H., 43, 44, 52, 55 

Miles, S. B., 138, 143, 200, 204, 209, 
214, 228 ff., 331 ff., 337 

Millingen, C, 193, 198 

Min, 201 

Misamir, 195 

Misena, 134 
^ Missionary enterprise, 5, 34, 83, 127, 

i93> 195. 231 
Moahib, B., 273 
Mokha, 43 ff.. 126, 145, 191 
Monsoons, see Rainfall 
Moresby, Capt., 114, 133, 168, 178, 211 
Mubariz, 234, 236 
Mufhak, 56 
Mugair, 178, 179 
Muhammad, see Rashid and Sa'ud 



Mukadassi, 27, 28, 29 
Mukhtar Pasha, 193, 198 
Muna, W., 76, 81, 91 
Muntefik, B., no 
Munzinger, W. M., 204, 210 
Musandam, R., 10, 36, 230 
Musaylamah, 5, 72 
Muweila, 168, i78ff. 
Myos Hormos, 13, 14 



NABATHiEANS, 10, 12, I3, 271, 280 

Nafud, 4, 30, 36, 99, 100, no, ii6, 157, 
162, 165, 169, 173, 239, 242, 243, \ 
250 ff., 265, 266, 280, 285, 305, 3n, 
323 ff., 336, 337 , 

Nagara, 21 I 

Nakab al-Hajar, 135, 145, 149, 209 \ 

Nakhl, 228 

Napoleon I., 69, 80, 100 

Napoleon III., 45, 247 

Nasir, Sultan, 34 

Nearchus, 10, 19 

Nega, 219 

Negrana, 13, 202 

Nehm, 201, 203 

Nejd, 36, 73, 136, 172, 202, 236, 240, 
267 ff., 296 ff., 328, 340 ff.; visitors 
to, 6, 104 ff., 160 ff., 178, 266 ff., 277, 
298 ff., 308 ff. ; early history, 26, 30, 
31 ; religion in, 74, 79, 122, 158 ; geo- 
graphical features of, 98 ff., 108 ff., 
115 ff., i63ff., 172, 233ff., 27off., 
277ff., 288ff., 298ff., 3i5ff., 33iff., 
340 ff.; Egyptians in, 102 ff., 140; 
roads to and in, 143, 1558., 170, 179, 
187, 230 ff., 240, 251 ff. 

Nejran, 5, 13, 14, 20 ff., 31, 56, 98, 

121, 122, 125, 126, 149, 200ff., 304, 

328, 329, 332 ff. 

Nezwa, 134, 139, 229 

Niebuhr, C, 6, 29, 35 ff., 87, 93, 95, 
98, ns, n9, 125, 126, 132, 133, 138, 
140 ff., 155, 157,1171. 191. »97, 198, 219 

Nisab, W., 210 

Nolde, E., 249, 255 ff., 273, 277, 287, 
296, 331 

Oasis society, 3, 31, 166, 231, 235 if., 
286, 294, 301 



3S^ 



INDEX 



Ogba, B., i8o 

Ohod, Mt., 184, 187 

D'OhssoJi, 67 

Okdat, J., 231, 232 

Oman, 2, 133 ff., 323, 327, 332, 333; 
ancient, 15, 20, 22, 26; visitors to, 
27, 32 ff., 50, 136 ff., 227 ff., 305; 
roads to, 31 ; geographical features, 36, 
i3Sff., 208, 226 ff., 334, 345 ff-; his- 
tory of, 76, 103, 134 ff., 213, 308, 314 

Otnanutn, 22 

Orma, 311 

Ormuz, 32, 33, 34 

Orography, 20, 21, 95, 109, 115, 116, 
139, 164, 167, 173, 181, 194, 206, 211, 
227, 270, 289, 330, 340, 341, 343, 347 

Oryx Beatrix, 158, 258 

Ottoman power, 42, 43, 47, 62, 65, 70, 
75. 83, 108, 126, 193, 194, 198, 204, 
236, 238, 274, 283 

Owen, Capt., 134 



Palgrave, W. G., 6, 77, 78, 106, 117, 

162, 164, 167, 190, 233 ff., 242 ff., 

265 ff., 274, 277, 2S6 ff., 296 ff., 

328 ff. 
"Palinurus," the, 127, 133, 135, 142, 144, 

145, 148, 150, 172, 178 
Felly, L., 233 ff., 247, 277, 297 ff., 305, 

308 ff. 
Periplus of the Red Sea, 23, 32 
Persian Gulf, 8 ff., 104, 112, 118, 125, 

135! 170, 190, 227, 298, 308, 317, 

325- 340> 342 
Petra, 11, 12, 15, 19, 24, 27, 88, 156 
Phoenicians, 8, 9 
Pilgrims, Persian, 4, 26, 27, 155, 157, 

161, 167, 170, 188, 320; Syrian, 36, 

46, 66, 84, 90, 91, III, 159 w., 186, 

271, 272, 298 
Pilgrim reports, 27, 30, 64 ff., 167, 173; 

roads, 67, 155, 156, 180, 187, 326 
Pinkerton, 113 

Pirates, 104, 134, 232, 308, 309 
Pitts, J., 66, 67, 186 n. 
Planat, J., 123 
Pliny, 14, 15, 17, 23, 26, 27 
Portuguese expeditions, 31 ff., 43, 134, 

192 
Pre-Semitic language, 213 



Prion, 22 
Procopius, 24 
Ptolemy, Claudius, 
Ptmt, 8 



15 ff-. 139 



Quadra, G. da, 64 n. 

Kabia, 237 

Rabig, 281 n. 

Racial characteristics, 5, 7, 61, 147, 190, 
223 

Radman, 206 

Radwa, J., 182, 289 

Railway projects, 239 

Rainfall, 2, 3, 68, 108, 124, i;7, 208, 
257, 292, 338, 341, 344 

Rakhiya, W., 151 

Ras al-Jabal, 141, 227, 230 

Rashid, House of, 159, 165, 166, 254, 
272, 277, 2S8; 'Abd-Allah Ibn, 165, 
170, 243; Mata'ab Ibn, 170; 'Ubayd 
Ibn, 170; Talal Ibn, 170, 244, 245, 
247 «., 252, 268, 269, 297; Muham- 
mad Ibn, 252,254,255, 273, 277, 287, 
288, 293, 294, 297 

Rass, 102, no, 289, 290, 292, 297 

Rastak, 33, 134, 135 

Red Sea, exploration of, 9, 10 ff., 14 ff. 
69, 178 

Reda, 194, 195, 196, 206 

Reinaud, 75, i04«., 112, 113, 236«., 
297, 305, 320 n. 

Relief, surface, i, 21, 48, 53, 95, 99, 
116, 124, 134, 162 ff., 177, 181, 190, 
194, 199, 206 ff., 221, 226, 256 ff., 
277, 27S ff., 282, 288, 296, 299, 314, 
3i6ff., 326,338ff. 

Rema, 108 

Renan, E., 271, 281 «. 

Renegades, 6, 56, 65, 66, 85, 88, 118^., 
186 «. 

Revivals, religious, 5, 47, 69 ff. 

Riad, 99, 173, 230, 235, 236, 299, 315, 
329. 330, 331 ; religion in, 77, 301 ff.; 
visitors to, 109, 300 ff., 308 ff., 320, 
324; history of, 118, 159, 160, 238, 
255, 288, 319 ff. ; society in, 166, 
190, 274 ; roads to, 277, 298, 304, 
3ioff. 

Ritter, K;, 151, 156, 171 ff., 183,304,306 



INDEX 



357 



Rivers, 3, 21 ff., 108, 125, 140, 172, 233, 

290, 30°. 3°6t 332 
Riyam, B., 139, 229 
Roala, B., 258, 266, 269 
Roba el-Khali, 115, 139, 202, 333ff. ; 

see Ahkaf, Dahna, Bahr As-SafI 
Kochwusky, Count \V., 113 
Roman knowledge, 12 ff., 23 ff., 26 
Rome, 12, 41 
Rooke, H., 69 n. 
Royal Geog. Society, 134, 150, 161, 170, 

248, 262, 305, 310, 336 
Rumem, W., 290 
Rumma, W. er-, 164, 184, 190, 208, 

233) 239, 273, 277, 2S5, 288 ff., 296 ff., 

306, 316, 326, 340, 341 
Riippell, E., 168, 178, 180 



Sab>eans, 10, 146, 147. See Him- 
yaritic Civilisation 

Sabkhah, 232, 332 

Sabor, J., 55, 192, 194, 195 

Sachan, 203 

Sade, 120 

Sadlier, G. F,, 17, 86, 105 ff., 120, 125, 
131. 159, 172, 233, 235, 236, 242, 
289, 290, 293, 298, 305, 309, 314, 

3i5> 318 

Sadr, W., 179, iSo 

Sa'Id Sayyid of Maskat, 135 

Saiyun, 151, 217, 222 

Sakaka, 162 

Saleh, prophet, 169, 220 

Salmah, 156 

Sana, 41 ff., 120, 126 ff., 142, 191, 
193 ff., 206, 211, 347, 348 

Sand phenomena, 150,251, 259 ff., 263 

Sa'ud, House of, 72, 75, 166, 230, 288, 
314, 320; Muhammad Ibn, 74, 75; 
'Abd al-Aziz Ibn, 75, 76 ; Sa'ud Ibn, 
75j 76, 79, 87, 121, 159; 'Abd-Allah 
Ibn, 102, 103; Turkl Ibn, 160; Fay- 
sal Ibn, 140, 159, 160, 170, 247, 299, 
309, 312, 313, 320; 'Abd-Allah Ibn 
Faysal, Ibn, 237, 238, 267, 304, 312, 

3'4 
Sawa, 149, 151, 221 n. 
Schweinfurth, G., 192, 193, 221 
Schimper, W., 190 «. 
Scientific method, improvement in, 15, 



27, 39. 57,60, 81, 89, 114, 161, 189, 

270 
Scoto, Dr., loi, HI 
Scylax, 9 
Sedeir, 31, 100, 108, 298, 299, 311, 317, 

318 
Sedus, 299, 311, 312, 315, 319 
Seetzen, U. J., 6, 81, 82, 90, 112, 155, 

159, 161, 185, 195 
Selma, J., 156, 164, 277 ff., 285, 288 
Semail, W., 22, 138, 140, 228, 229 
Semed, 138 
Semitic matters, 7, 8, 12, 26, 213, 253, 

271, 275, 303 
Ser, W., 220 
Shabwa, see Sawa 
Shahran, W., 125 
Shaiba, 277, 297 
Shakik, 252 

Shakra, 109, 114, 296, 297, 315, 318 
Shammar, J., 4, 31, 36, 75, 100 ff., 113, 

116, 1558., 243 ff., 250 ff., 2658., 

303, 314, 316,321,340,342 
Shar, J., 182 

Sharif, Grand, see Mecca, Hijaz 
Sharif, Imam Bahadur, 219, 220 
Sharja, 141, 230 
Sharpey, Capt., 43 
Shefa, i8i 

Sheher, 146, 209, 215, 2i5 
Sheikh Said, 194 
Shera, J., 178, 260, 325 
Sherarat, B., 266 
Shibam, 36, 143, 151, 2178., 222 
Shinas, 141, 230 
Shiraizi, 139, 229 
Shukra, 194, 211 
Sib, W., 134, 140, 230 
Sif, 150, 217 

Sihut, 151, 207, 214, 217, 346 
Siki, 228, 22.9 
Sinai, 46, 178, 343 
Sirhan, W., 157, 162, 269 
Slayb, B., 61, 314 
Smith, Sir L., 137 
Smith, Lieut., 212 
Sobe, 195 
Socio, Dr., loi 
Socotra, 15, 135, 213 
Sohar, 33, 141, 231 
Sokhr, B., 266 



3S^ 



INDEX 



Soley, W., 319, 332 
Sprenger, A., 17, 156 
Stephen of Byzantium, 23, 24 
Stern, H, A,, 33«., 193 
Stieler's Hand-atlas, 35, 331 
Strabo, 11, 12 
Struys, J., 134 
Styx, 22 

Suares, Lopez, 32 
Sub, B., 187 
Sueik, 140 

Suez, 12, 32, 83, 92, 102 
Suez Canal, 197, 247, 248, 293 
Sufeine, 188 • 

Suk As-Shiku, 290 
Suk el-Khamis, 56 
Suleiman Ghazi, 32 n. 
Sur, W, (Midian), i8i 
Sur (Oman), 136, 229 
Suriya, 212 
Swaba, W,, 198 

Syria, i, 26, 29, 51, 80, 86, 88, 90, 123, 
155 ff., 246, 247, 252,269 



Taban, W., 195 

Tadmor, 254 
Tai, B., 156 
Taibism, J., 180 

Taif, 68, 87, 90, 95, 98, 100, loi, 115, 
120, 122, 173, 190, 191, 274, 317, 

330, 332. 344 

Tais, 42, 44, 49, 54, 55, 128, 195, 196 

Tamisier, M. O., 85, 123 ff., 172 

Taraba, 85, 122, 329 

Tarik al-Ghablr, 187 

Tebuk, 31, 168, 178 

Tehama, 11, 12, 48 ff., 126, 127, 176, 
191, 201, 212, 215, 344 

Teima, 18, 30, 31, 36, 165, 169, 189, 
256, 266 ff., 272, 273, 280 ff., 340 

Teima Stone, 1S9, 272, 281 

Tema, 18, 280, 282 

Terim, 36, 146, 151, 217, 219, 222 

Thamud, B., 184, 270 

Tinam, 203 

Todeschini, Dr., loi 

Trade routes, ancient, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 
14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 23, 26 ; modern, 
43. 94. 104, 156, 160, 170, 228, 234, 
274, 293, 320, 327, 328, 332, 335 



Trajan (Emperor), 24 

Trucial chiefs, 308, 309 

Tueik, J., 20, 99, 109, 115, 298, 311, 

317, 319, 341 
Tueim, 299 
"Turkja-Bilmez," 123 
Tussun Pasha, 85, 87, loi, 114 
Tyin, W. and J., 22, 228, 229 



Ubne, W., 149, 151 
Umm el-Dulbhan, 252 
Uthman, B,, 209 



VAissiiRE, loi, 114, 123 

Varthema, L. di, 31, 33, 41, 43, 65 ff., 
184, 188, 270, 282 

Vogii6, M. de, 271 

Volcanic phenomena, 4, 81, 95, 144, 
168, 172, 199, 211, 220, 223, 227, 
234, 259, 284, 339 ; see Harrah 



Wabra, 311 

Wahabi doctrine, 70 ff., 'j'j, 157, 269, 

302, 303, 331 
Wahabi history, 73 ff., 82, 83, 84 ff., 

90, 102 ff., 135, 140, 158, 159, 230, 

238, 308, 309 
Wahabi movement, 5, 47, 69 ff., 83 ff., 

98, 121, 122, 331 
Wahabi society, 78 ff., 113, 136, 141, 

23s, 245. 299 ff., 313,314, 320 
Wahadi, B., 144 
Wallin, G. A., 6, 160 ff., 178, 242, 243, 

247, 250 ff., 265 ff., 277, 280, 286, 31 1 
Walther, J., 261,263 
Warfare, tribal, 26, 74 ff., 87, 102, 136, 

156, 288, 297, 305 
Weisit, 162 
Wellsted, J. R., I34ff., 178, 209, 211, 

213, 227 ff., 232, 286, 333, 334 
Wetzstein, J. G., 164, 273, 289, 291 
Whitelock, Lieut., 137 ff., 230 
Wij, 182, 184, 187 
Wild, J., 66, iS6«. 
Wolff, J., 83, 127 
Woshm, 31, 100, 102, no, 296, 298, 

299. 318, 319 
Wrede, A. von, 129, 131, 145, 148 ff., 

171, 209, 214 ff., 333, 334 



INDEX 



359 



Yabrin, W,, 31, 98, 233, 326, 330, 331, 

333 
Yafia, 196, 211 
Yakut, 28, 95, 164, 290 
Yam, J., 201, 203 
Yambo, 68, 79, 87, 90, iii, 120, 182, 

184, 185, 186, 344 
Yass, B., 134, 232 
Yathrib, 18, 24 
Yemama, 31, 99, 100, 108, 115, 233, 

305, 313. 314, 319, 330 ff-. 342 
Yemen, 30, 120, 147, 206, 211, 212; 
geographical features, 2, 20, 42, 53 ff., 
»Si, "i-n, 199. 202, 317, 338, 344 ff. ; 
visitors to, 27, 29, 32, 40 ff., 47 ff., 
127 ff., 193 ff. ; government of, 43 ff., 
125, 130, 191 if. ; antiquities of, 11, 



14, 50, 56, 128 flf., 198 if. ; trade of, 
12, 43 ff-. 5I1 94. '21, 304, 327 ff,; 
history of, 24, 26, 191 ff. 
Yerim, 42, 50, 55, 194, 195, 196 
Yusuf al-Maliki, 157, 162,164 



Zahleh, 244, 246 
Zahura, J., 148 

Zamil (of Aneiza), 267, 273, 288, 293 
Zebid, 42, 46, 48, 50, 54, 83, 191, 344 
Zehme, A., 130, 267 7j, 
Zenan, 44 

Zobeide's road, 155, 157, 188, 297 
Zulfa, 290, 298, 315 
Zwemer, S. M., 194, 195, 198, 231, 235, 
237 



H 304 85=«i 



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